Gift Receipt

I was standing in a return line at Target last week. A long line of big, orange carts and people holding gift receipts. I'd left my purse in my car so I couldn't fidget with my phone or blow big, obnoxious bubbles with chewing gum or anything. To abandon my spot in line would bump me back another sixty minutes or so, so I just stood still and waited a long time. 

I thought of those Christmas Shopping headlines I'll read in the check-out lane of the grocer: Parents Start Fist Fight Over The Last Tickle-Me-Elmo. The headlines are a less understandable version of consumer crush than the General Admission Who concert of 1979. 

From what I understand the consumer instinct is sort of forward surge. I heard once that people don't usually get trampled. The movement is vertical. The crowd crushes someone rather than knocking them to the ground. The image is less panic stricken. The victim is lifted off of the ground, possibly the object of desire is within sight, and they’re asphyxiated while standing vertical. 

There is a constant ache we feed with the things we want. We want something, we get it, we want something else. There isn’t an end to it. There is a dull rumble in the pit of your stomach, an unsatisfied center that wants more. 

The preponderance of what we do, what we buy, what we want is with the conviction it will help us feel accomplished or alive. We have glimpses of those feelings. Flickers of it in quiet moments.  But the sensation can't be purchased, so we keep moving to find it. 

With that thought the queue of orange carts moved two-steps forward. I smoothed out my gift receipt. I was the next in line.