Early one morning last week, Mr. P and I were in bed, trying to muster the requisite verve to venture into the cold that awaited beyond our comforter. Not helping was the howling wind that made a tornado-like sucking noise against our windows. “We should get new curtains,” I suggested, as my husband stole another quarter of the comforter. “Thick ones that’ll insulate the windows. These — ” I gestured to the flimsy blue lace curtains that flapped ever-so-gently in the incoming draft — “are letting out all of the heat.”
Here we’re only newlyweds, but I’m already proving to be adept at domestic stealth. We need new curtains… not because I’m tired of looking at these musty blue atrocities that remind me of doilies and match nothing we own, but … to save energy. No husband can argue with that logic. I intend to make a similar pitch for a new hairdryer.
We had a Bed Bath and Beyond gift card burning a hole in our wallet, so we headed to a nearby cluster of big-box stores. Shopping trips like this are rare, and the minute we stepped into Bed Bath and Beyond, my latent consumer instincts were awakened. Things! Everywhere I looked, my eye snagged on something that seemed to warrant consideration: Non-stick cookware, stockpots, woks, steamers, mixers, blenders, toasters, roasters, strainers, casseroles, slow cookers, paring knifes, cutting boards, napkin holders, spice racks, salad spinners, tea pots, mixing bowls, and endless specialty gadgets interspersed everywhere, like dumpling presses, pasta drying racks, bacon drainers, popsicle molds, herb mincers, milk frothers, corn strippers, avocado knives, escargot tongs, fruit pestles, olive oil misters, and bean peelers.
We pushed on through the kitchen stuff and onto the window treatments. Honestly, I’ve never purposely shopped for curtains before, and since I put little prior thought into my desired color and style, the selection of 70 or so curtains overwhelmed me. After ruling out the feeble organzas and see-through silks, as well as the brocade and bordello prints, I narrowed it down to about a dozen curtains that I could live with, all of which cost $40 per panel.
I picked our new curtains based on the relative enthusiasm in Mr. P’s reaction when I said “What about these?” $40 for a rectangular piece of fabric seems like an inordinate amount of money, and Mr. P couldn’t keep his interest away from the non-pretty $20 curtains. But I battled him with logic: “You have to look at the curtains every day for, like, the next ten years. Don’t you want to pay an extra half-penny per day to be able to look at pretty curtains?” Fearing the answer was “no,” I trudged out my winning logic: “And think of how much we’ll save in energy costs!”
Who buys new curtains during a recession? Only us, it appears. A few others browsed the aisles with noncommittal lethargy, but a forlorn emptiness pervaded the entire store, and for a second I felt sad for all of those things sitting in Bed Bath and Beyond, unwanted. Suddenly America has no use for novelty bath appliques, iPod shower speaker system, toss pillows, bedside storage caddies, or electronic grocery list organizers. The only necessities are for food when we’re hungry, comfort when we’re weary, and warmth on the mornings when the cold wind blows.
