Admitting it is the first step on the long journey to hell down the road paved with good intentions.

My name is Karen and I am powerless over plastic.
Hi Karen.

This is Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Support Groups. I'd probably fit into a few different ones, actually: Codependent, Emotional Eating, Compulsive Shopping, etc.

Did you hear about the codependent who had a near-death experience?
Her husband's life flashed before her very eyes....

Although I've always been inclined toward twisted humor, my chosen profession hasn't helped. And having children has further eroded that filter between what I think and what I actually blurt out. It ain't pretty.

But I digress...

Yesterday I had planned to take a friend to the Salvation Army and -get this - just not buy anything. Bob and I had yet another discussion about the proliferation of toys - regardless of new/used - is still consumption. And that for as much as I've been getting rid of our belongings, other things were inexorably creeping in to take their place. The accidental emphasis on acquiring things doesn't really mesh with what we'd hoped to teach our children. All true, valid points, I must admit.

X and I needed to clear out of the house for a while, as Nady our cleaning lady was at work. We did a couple of errands, attended a playgroup, generally killing time. I got a phone call from my friend saying she wasn't up to an outing. Faced with a change in plans, I go to default settings i.e. shopping. In my defense, the purpose was to find X some shoes - he is growing out of his sneakers, leaving him with only moon boots or sandals as options. Not quite enough for the hateful weather of March.

We went to Goodwill and struck out. Nothing in his size. Didn't look for anything else. Managed to escape the toy aisle and video shelf unscathed.

I wasn't up to dealing with Savers, which is probably a cop-out. So off to the Salvation Army. First we checked upstairs which has a good used shoe section, but no luck. Downstairs had a bunch of cool shoes, including a pair of Chuck Taylor's with skulls, a full size too big but hey, for $4 I decided I would get them anyway. At first glance the toy shelves seemed to have the same zillion copies of High School Musical Trivia (redundant much?) , and a few other things that weren't too tempting. I was fondling the decorator pillows and lovely quilts, and telling myself a zillion reasons why we didn't need them, when Xavier lets out a screech of triumph. Some dusty back of the bin discovery - a Playmobil firefighting helicopter. That actually squirts water. For $2.

Don't judge me too harshly. It might have been possible to walk away, but my hope in doing so was shot when there were more sets - a fire engine, extra firefighters with all the safety gear, yet another helicopter, and a pirate ship. I may have blacked out. I filled my shopping cart.

It's another attack of Miniature Mania, although this is worse because I never even had access to all the boy-oriented toys. 3 inch tall pirates, with teeny swords? Playmobil rocks. It just does. And at 75% off? Please.

Then I found more Fiskar scissors for the preschool ($1) so we can get rid of the pairs we started with in 1958. And an awesome Schwinn bicycle helmet, in my daughter's size and colors, for $4 - nicer than the one I looked at last year for $20.

Total damage? $42 Guilt: priceless.

We did a ding-dong ditch of 3 of the Playmobil sets at a friend's house. Much better than a flaming bag of dog poo, I reckon. I let X have the helicopter and L her helmet. The pirate ship still founders in the trunk, listing to port. I haven't decided, and more importantly, X hasn't remembered.

Lest I put this all in the category of a small indiscretion, let's review the facts as presented. Even if it's from a thrift store, it's still stuff. Even worse, new stuff. Even at 75% off, I could have saved 100% by walking away. Buying it and giving it away is still buying, consuming, getting a fix, giving in to the high of the bargain hunt. And none of today's purchases met the necessity test.

Let's examine the fact I haven't yet presented but which weighs heavily on all of this.

Our cleaning lady, Natividad Hernandez, tearfully told me yesterday that she is returning (again) to Guatemala to take care of her ailing mother, and she's not sure for how long. Between her own health problems and taking many weeks off for visits, she's missed a lot of work and apparently quit her second job fairly recently. (My Spanish is minimal, as is her English, but we get by. Or at least I thought I understood.) Once she returns from helping her mother die, she'll be going straight to Chicago. To stay with her boyfriend, her stuff is en route already. All because her house got foreclosed and she was literally kicked to the curb this weekend. So I'm filling my house with crap while the woman who cleans it loses her own.

I feel like shit. As is only befitting. And I won't be going shopping for a while.