A New Best Friend

I have been fighting my urge to shop for new clothes these past couple of days, knowing that I have already done a lot of shopping splurges for myself during the past couple of weeks. In fact, within just a single pay period I was able to buy myself a few clothes for work, a travel/work bag, a pair of canvas shoes, a Grande-size Starbucks tumbler, canvas-covered journal, an imported toiletry kit, and a rare copy of The House of the Spirits novel by Isabel Allende. I know that these stuff may not be enough for me to be considered a shopping addict, but I am aware that my purchases are becoming more frequent that there was a time that I almost ran out of money a day before my pay was given. This is an uncomortable confession to make but I noticed that I find it easier to conquer my bad habits and vices when I share it with other people.

Okay, so I’ve been having a lot of problems with my old phone, an LG Optimums Swift which got eternally damned to run on Android 2.1. Aesthetically, the phone was really good that I could still proudly use it side by side with a friend that has an iPhone. The only downside to it was that it got so sluggish and tended to force-close a running application whenever it runs out of memory or whatever. At first, I didn’t have any difficulty convincing myself that it’s a good phone, and that it would take only a few tweaks to bring it back to its best shape again. I deleted the apps that are seldom used, and installed an application that prevented the phone from working “too much”. It worked. But that limited me from doing stuff that I like to do like chatting, blogging, and playing games. What was supposed to be a cool phone became a constant pain in the ass.

After some time of struggling with conscience, I decided to buy a new phone a few days ago. I was roaming around the gadgets section of St. Francis Square when I spotted a mint-condition LG Optimums Chat L-04C. Like most of my shopping finds, it was love at first sight that I immediately bought it after careful checking of specs, physical attributes and overall performance. The smartphone was as good as new, not even a tiny hint of scratch on the surface. It runs on Android 2.2 Froyo OS, boasts of a considerably big storage space and speedy processor, and features a slideup QWERTY keyboard which can make typing of lengthy stuff [like this] a breeze.

It was a great deal. I honestly think that I should have paid more. I was really excited that I kept bugging my best friend on how good it was during our trip back home. But he only gave a cold shoulder as if he didn’t care at all. He just wouldn’t speak. And that’s what really drove me crazy. That’s the time I realized what I had just done. I was reminded that I just spent a big chunk of my savings for something that would thrill me for just a short period of time. I told him that I would refrain from buying more clothes, since our closet was already getting too crowded with my clothes, but I spent even more for a fancy cellphone even if I already had one. Guilt and remorse were the two things I felt that moment. At the same time, I felt angry, wondering why he had to make me feel sorry when I was just trying to make myself feel a little better.

In the end, even without saying a word to my best firend, I accepted that what I did was already too much, though the satisfaction of having bought something of worth, function, and beauty was too good to be ignored. It eventually won over the guilt that I was feeling. It was too late to be sorry about something that has been already done. Instead, I just looked into the bright side of having a new phone and just made a promise to myself that I won’t be spending for something I don’t need in the next two months.

But you know how promises work, right? ;]