Really, I just wanted a freakin' belt.

Having exhausted every possibility within a 15-mile radius in my search to find a non-black, non-brown belt I could wear with my still-too-big jeans on the weekends, I set out this morning for the freak show also known as THE GREAT MALL.

If you've never been to The Great Mall, let me explain. It's basically a GINORMOUS complex, built in a circle, that houses +/- 100 stores. Many of the stores are outlets (Saks, Neiman Marcus, Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic), some are generic strip mall stores (Forever 21, Claire's, Shoe Pavillion, PacSun), and some are niche stores that sell items like hospital scrubs, "as seen on TV" items, and glass-encased scorpions that you can hang from a chain around your neck. Should you choose to do so.

And there's a big movie theater.

And of course, because it is such a GINORMOUS complex and just walking through half of it could take even a non-shopper six hours, there are also lots of restaurants, including Fresh Choice (my personal favorite), Dave & Buster's, Anderson Bakery (which you'd think would be my personal favorite) and strip mall standbys like Sbarro and Cinnabon.

(Digression. I hope to never, ever eat a Cinnabon ever again throughout the span of my entire life, because they are so utterly disgusting, but DAMN do they smell good. End of digression.)

One might think, that with all the options, I could easily have found a belt. Not the case. Not one lousy belt that met my criteria.

As I walked from store to store in that GINORMOUS mall, I slowly realized was that we are a society that makes so much crap that we can't even sell it on the regular market, so we have to create special "outlet" markets to attempt to sell the crap that wouldn't sell on the regular market at a discounted price, and then I started thinking about all the people who can't afford food and shelter and it suddenly just seemed SO VERY WRONG to be in The Great Mall.

And so I left, sans belt but feeling self-righteous (and full from my GINORMOUS salad at Fresh Choice).

Driving up 880 toward home, I saw a DSW Shoe store off to the side of the freeway in Fremont. I swerved three lanes and took the exit. Because I am ALL ABOUT the DSW shoes. And although I didn't find any shoes, I did learn that there is a Costco in Fremont, and it is well stocked! And well organized! And the people are nice, much nicer than in San Leandro or Richmond! And the lines were shorter! Although there weren't as many free samples. But anyway, instead of driving 40 miles to find a belt, I ended up driving 40 miles to spend yet another $122 at Costco on bargains I could never have found elsewhere.

And then I realized that consumerism is ingrained in my being just as it is ingrained in all of your beings, and...

And...

Well, frankly I just don't care. I mean, seriously! THREE POUNDS of dried cranberries for under $7? That's like six months' worth of cranberries that I can stir into my oatmeal or yogurt every morning!

God bless America.