wearing my other oakleys, in my other volvo
that’s how they get ya
I am, I confess, a consummate consumer. I care about the products that I buy, and I am very concerned about things like quality and durability and functionality and a little bit about design and aesthetics. also means that I’m probably one of the easier people for marketers to manipulate.
So, take sunglasses for example. when I was a kid in the 80s, Ray-Ban was the cool brand of sunglasses, but I would never even think about aspiring to ray bans, because my family was poor, and that that Miami Vice product placement was for rich people, not people like me. instead, I begged my mother, probably got whatever was five dollars at Caldor or JCPenney, or maybe even McCrory’s. and over the years, as happens with kids and cheap things, they would always break or get lost quickly enough, and I would buy another one, usually for $10 or less, usually thinking, why spend more on something disposable. But eventually, you start to creep up. you get your first job, and now you’ve got a $50 bill in your wallet. You don’t need to limit yourself to the five dollar sunglasses that are bound to break, you can get the $20 ones that might last a little i longer. now the Oakley brand got pretty popular in the 90s, which was around when I had my first job, but a pair of Oakley’s was 80 bucks or more, which was literally two entire paychecks from my job McDonald’s. but eventually, I was in the military, making all of $1500 a month, and at $110 instead of the full price of $130, a pair of brand new Oakley’s felt like just the way to mark my arrival in the world.
so instead of sunglasses, I had Oakley’s, and they were a little more valuable, a little more durable, something I was a little proud to be seen wearing. naturally, that became my baseline, my new standard for the minimum quality of a product that goes on my face, so any other eyewear, like my prescription glasses, also needed to be something premium like Oakley or Nikon. and all of a sudden, you have two. You didn’t just aspire him with one pair of Oakley’s, he expired to one pair of Oakley’s and a back up pair of Oakley’s, or maybe a pair of Oakley’s to keep in each place.
now, I can’t believe the redundancy of expensive products in my life. at the moment, I am wearing a Patagonia fleece which I bought on sale for 80 bucks (regular price 150), and I’ve definitely lost count of how many hundred plus dollar Patagonia fleeces and jackets I’ve owned over the years. I don’t even think about it. “I already have a Patagonia jacket” isn’t a thought that I think about pondering whether to buy another Patagonia jacket, I think about whatever circumstance compels me to need one more. in this case, it was a combination of I accidentally went hundreds of miles from home without any kind of casual fleece or sweatshirt, and I happened to not have one like this that fit me at the moment.
but, I feel like I’m a little disgusted by my own consumerism lately. it’s just too much, even if I got there by making choices that seemed rational in the moment. indeed, I’ve come to be a little more strategic about these objects, seldom buying them brand new for example. i’m rebuilding my library from used bookstores for 5 to 7 dollars apiece instead of $20-$50 apiece. every vehicle I presently have was purchased secondhand, though still from a dealership with a warranty. Even the leash that I’m using right this second to walk my dog came from the returns rack at REI, for half price. Yet, it’s also a fancy brand “high end” piece of fabric.
I’m something like addicted, although at this point I can’t expect an outside observer to see a difference between me and a “label whore” who buys clothing based on the branding alone.
I tell myself it’s just about quality and value. And that really is true to some degree, the old “vimes boots” story from Terry Pratchet. That is just “ultimately, the poor spend more on clothing because the stuff that costs half the price lasts a lot less than half as long.” It’s also that when I shop used, I can still expect the used Patagonia to outlast the brand new Walmart in many but not all cases. So I buy fancy underpants, which do indeed last longer, but for t-shirts I usually buy the ones that are under $10 in the sportswear department at Walmart or Target, new, because it’s not worth fussing for used t-shirts.
I’m typing this on not quite the latest iphone, but one of many latest iphones that i’ve purchased over the years. There, it’s my extreme fussiness that leads me to insisting on the latest. This phone had a better data transfer plug than any other iPhone, and a particular camera feature I had wanted for a while. The next one added another feature I really like, but i couldn’t bring myself to spend that much for one button. Now i’m seriously reconsidering and this is probably my last brand new iPhone, and certainly my last top of the line iPhone.
what’s really strange is, I’m having a hard time convincing myself of a different way. The vimes boots story is true. replacing my high-end products with lower end products will not give me any advantage. my strategy of buying used and particularly out of fashion colors and styles essentially limits any savings I would get from the brand new cheaper product, and the cheaper product doesn’t exist used in general. well, it does, but the savings is negligible; the used Walmart jacket at the thrift store doesn’t cost a whole lot less than just buying the same thing at Walmart, and indeed, it’s usually pretty much used up in terms of wear. it’s really only the redundancy that I need to call myself out for. Do I really need two pairs of Oakley? I kind of feel like the fact that necessity has compelled me to wear the spare today gives me a “yes”. and yet, I’m starting to feel just a silly having two pairs of Oakley’s as I do having too late model Volvos. and apart from really the cost of insurance, I can’t seem to find an argument that compels me to do anything different with vehicles either. Any other strategy is bound to basically cost as much money or more in the end. A car that costs less on sticker price and insurance is pretty likely to cost me more on repairs or even fuel. that’s not because luxury cars are inherently reliable, quite the contrary; but I found kind of this loophole that luxury car manufacturers are more generous with warranty mileage on recertified cars.
that kind of circles me back to, it’s a bad look but I’m not wrong. 
