Retail Therapy

I was talking with a friend at work today, and she threw this phrase out that I found to be hilarious. What she described, I have surely done more than a few times...yet I had never put such a perfect label on it. We were talking about stress, and she spun around in her chair, pointed to a lone bag on her floor and said, "I know...the stress is horrible today...Ridge (soon-to-be husband) is buying a kayak, so I think I deserve some new workout shoes. Sure, they were $80 workout shoes, but still. I mean, sometimes, I just need to go for the retail therapy." I do this very thing all of the time. I admit that I usually do the combination Target/Genuardi's trip so that I'm, by default, also purchasing needs and won't regret the move too terribly much. But, this also got me thinking. I've written times before about Borders horror stories. So, I'm wondering if maybe the retail horror stories stem from everyone else in the world going through with retail therapy...they're just having a bad day, and trying to fix that fact when things just go awry. As a friend said to me last week: "I think this was a good plan gone bad." Regardless of these reflections, I will now have a label for my crazy retail behavior. I love buyage...it's just one of the many extensions of my love affair with...well...money.