Big Spender

These days I've been going around and buying stuff like crazy. At the end of the day I always seem to come home with a big plastic bag full of stuff, and perhaps at least two-thirds of the things I get I don't usually appreciate until much later. I've accumulated a ton of magazines, comics DVDs and anime VCDs that I haven't even begun to get into yet. Last week it was comics. This week, I'm back to VCDs and DVDs. I even dabbled in spending my money online at eBay.
Gosh, you'd think I was a millionaire or something... but then, to be fair the stuff I spend on individually aren't much. And they're really stuff I like and will like once I actually get to look at them a second time or so.

I guess it all hails back to my childhood. (cue weird flashback special effects...)

I was a quiet, nice kid. Really. I didn't really make a fuss. Never really cried unless I fell down from at least one story, and I always made do with what I had. So it was only when my parents began to notice my shoes had holes or my pencil was pretty much ground down to the eraser, they'd ask if I needed new stuff.
We weren't poor, really. We were always well-fed, lived in nice houses in nice neighborhoods. We were well-to-do... but it was impressed on me that we weren't rich. I didn't think that I could ask my mom to buy me a toy unless it was my birthday or Christmas. So usually I'd just stare and long for stuff in silence.

It of course lasted into my school years. I'd see my classmates bring their Transformers toys to school and turn green with envy. I had action figures, yes, but never the 'In' toys at the time. So, I would just stare and long. I pined for a Starscream... or any of those cool Decepticon planes. I'd pine for Go Bots, G.I. Joes... anything.
In High School, I lusted particularly for a book-bound Crisis On Infinite Earths collection (Yes, sacrilege), and eventually bought it from my classmate to the sum of three hundred pesos. It doesn't seem like a big sum now, but to a kid who didn't have any source of money except baon, it was HUGE. To get it, I borrowed money from my sister and brother. In the end though, when my mom found out I had made a 'loan', she ORDERED that we NEVER do it again until we had paying jobs. I didn't have to pay back the loan, and we didn't speak of it at all after. As for the Crisis comics, I think my brother lent it to someone who never returned it. Oh well.

And so, today.
I've got a paying job, which pretty much lets me spend every now and then. I don't have a family yet, nor do I pay rent. Of my on-hand cash, I use about .0000000001 for clothes. Which leaves MOST of my money for stuff that I want. ANYTHING. It's so cool.
But it's not like I'd just walk into any store and start buying out all the Transformer toys in sight. My heart today loves comics, anime, games and comics, anime, games. Throw in the odd doo-dad or shirt or cellphone or DVD and you've got me.
It's a very dangerous thing to be an impulse buyer like me, but I think it's pretty healthy. I don't gamble, or smoke, or drink (alcohol), so whatever I get is direct into eye candy, mind-fucks and instant gratification. Which complements in keeping me my minimally-stressed, usually cool and calm, always optimistic (though often tired) and MAD self.

Can money buy me happiness? Yep, I have to say it does. Little bits, which taken in doses is quite nice. But of course, people to share these things with every now and then make the circle complete.

And now I have to go off and see if there are any new thingamajigs and thingamabobs to splurge my cash on around...