Let's all shed a tear....

There was a feature article on CNNfn.com this morning, entitled "Confessions of a Compulsive shopper" (http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/20/pf/shopper_0508/index.htm). The title was not tongue-in-cheek; it was about a woman who racked up $50,000 in credit card debt buying toddler clothes at Gymboree. I laughed several times as I read it. Am I the only one who finds it absurd that in spite of all the people out there with actual illnesses, debilitating conditions and hardships, we're supposed to feel sorry for this woman? Quote from the article, "She thinks the worst is over but adds, 'I don't know if I'll ever be normal.'" I want her to say this to some guy who just came back from Afghanistan or Iraq with a missing limb, or to someone with terminal cancer.

And forgive what may seem like a tacky note, but after two paragraphs, I just knew her kid was going to have one of those stupid, trendy-in-the-last-five-years names, and surely enough, "Skylar".

I'm sure I would have been able to mine a few more laughs from her website (a "Gymboree-addiction recovery Web site"), but some quick Googling didn't turn anything up. You know, about fifty years ago, they had a perfectly good cure for conditions such as compulsive shopping--a little something called the back of the husband's hand!

Now some of you may say that I'm condoning wife abuse here, but rest assured I'm not--I would hope a woman would beat the shit out of her husband if he claimed a "disorder" this lame.