Light at the end of the tunnel

Wow! It's finally here in all it's splendor, the holiday I usually loath...

This New Year's Eve has a special significance to it, not because we have any plans (we're staying at home for a quite celebration) or because we paid off the car or won the lottery or anything nearly that interesting...it is significant because it is the last mandatory day of this boycott.

Despite my complaints and railings against consumerism and product origin, this is a bittersweet event. It is bittersweet because it has been with me for so long it has taken on and identity of it's own. Most people who know me are aware of the boycott, although no one else, save Luke, have joined it. Most people seem to think I am either insane or wasting my time. It has made shopping far more of a burden and far less enjoyable, although I am not sure that I actually saved money as a result. It has kept me up at nights and been a recurring source of arguments between Luke and I and between my mom and I and it has made me painfully aware of how much I consume, from food to useless stuff. I am fearful that I will slip back into a pretty oblivion within a few months of being able to buy whatever I want.

I don't think I've ever boycotted something as long as I did this (although 2008's boycott appears to be the pending landfill expansion in our neighborhood) and it was infinitely more difficult than I ever thought that it would be.

However, there were positives such as an increased awareness of where my cheap consumable products came from and what it might have taken to make them and get them to me at a price I was willing to pay. There were also the rare moments when I was debating over making a purchase only to find out it was made in China and therefore the decision was made for me. Sometimes that was a positive. Sometimes.

Today we prematurely celebrated the end of the boycott by going to the hardware store (a big chain store which probably helped eliminate any independent hardware stores in the area) to buy a "goose neck" and a "1" nipple" for the shower parts I managed to break while attempting to install my new Christmas present, a "Made in China" shower head.

I was all nervous and somewhat dumbstruck to learn that both pieces were made in China and there were no alternatives in the store. We discussed if this violated the boycott or was permissible because I broke something that wasn't mine or if it was an emergency (this was Luke's idea). In the end, we bought the parts because someone is coming to fix it first thing tomorrow morning and I am just fine with my mom not knowing that I broke the shower's nipple. (Just so you know, that is a part which connects the pipes behind the shower wall to the goose neck, or visible piece in the shower which your shower head mounts onto. I did not know any of this a few hours ago.)

In some ways I already feel like I've given up on this boycott. I certainly threatened to do so often enough when I was Christmas shopping! A far more logical way to handle that fiasco, by the way, would have been to give gift cards to everyone, be finished with my shopping in an hour and let their good consciouses choose what to buy. But I didn't do that and it was a miserable experience!