November 25, 2005 8:42 PM

International Buy Nothing Day

Today is International Buy Nothing Day. It happens to coincide with Black Friday, but I'm in Toronto right now so there are no crazy sales. Pretty easy to resist buying anything at all, right?

I'm so ashamed of myself. I made a point to participate this year when Ryan reminded me last week, but when I woke up this morning, I totally forgot. I went out and bought stuff. Even worse, I bought frivolous signs of affluence. As consolation, my mom told me to buy more tomorrow so it would "seem" like I bought nothing today by comparison. Har har. Very funny, mom.

It used to be so easy to participate in International Buy Nothing Day when I was in Waterloo, because one would have to make a great effort in order to get to a place where there is anything worth buying. Ditto when I'm in the Bay Area. I spend way too much time at the office, and by the time I leave, all the stores are closed. *sigh* I'm going to have to make up for the bad karma that I've accumulated today.

In other news, I started wearing my Santa hat again, and children at the mall were staring at me, as if they were expecting me to give them candy canes. I used to give out candy canes, but parents are growing increasingly cautious and I'm not sure they would appreciate it if a stranger was giving out candy to their kids. I think I'll keep some stickers in my purse to give out this year.