one-click buy

In a bid to fight the encroaching borders of seasonal affective disorder, my digital retail therapy has taken on a hideous, wallet-sucking life of its own. I might actually like opening packages more than playing with the things inside.

I buy records and I don’t have a record player. I buy used books off Amazon—when the product pages has that yellow box on the side with a used price inside, and that used price is under ten dollars, I will black out for a second and when I come to I will have purchased that book and its two sequels. I bought organic hot chocolate from Mexico yesterday. I don’t care about organic things, nor do I care about Mexico (okay, beaches are nice. and tequila). Also: I haven’t even felt the desire for boiling liquid cocoa in years.

But when it’s online, and it’s on sale, and I haven’t let my credit card out to play for, like, ten minutes—it’s bought.

And this is the season of sales, of course, so my inbox is littered with the leavings of Black Friday and its thousandfold online offspring. Heavily discounted comic books?! Well, I haven’t heard anything about the author, or the series, but it’s eight dollars.

So for the next month my browser will be dedicated to the tabs of my masters—ebay, Amazon, Thwipster, Fab, Woot, oh god, oh god, there’s more—and I will remove the link to check my Chase balance from my bookmarks.

• compulsion