- When the pandemic hit, I started investing in home goods.
- At a certain point, I realized draining my bank account for candles wasn't entirely wise.
- Now, I just add things to my
shopping cart without hitting "buy," and I won't stop anytime soon.
It all started when I shattered a glass.
In early April, I knocked a water cup off the coffee table. It was one of the last ones I owned, leaving coffee mugs with Kanye West quotes on them to act as my only drinking vessels.
Williams-Sonoma was having a sale, so I decided to order some new glasses. But I had a shipping minimum to make, and on a whim, I added a set of fancy cocktail glasses. Though the cocktail glasses weren't expensive, they weren't necessary, and it felt novel - I had never purchased kitchenware that was anything but perfunctory.
I fell in love with them. I loved their tiny size and fragility, how ill-suited they were for anything but holding a single Negroni. I delighted in sipping from them on my fire escape at sunset. I loved that I didn't need them, but had them anyway. When my roommate broke one by accident, I considered telling him to find a new home.
From that point forward, a monster was born. All I wanted was to drain my bank account and buy stuff I didn't need for the apartment I couldn't leave. I bought enamel baking dishes and a KitchenAid mixer. I ordered a cute oven mitt set. I splurged on a cordless vacuum on Black Friday and declared it "my favorite cleaning object of all time." I purchased so many candles my roommate told me I had a problem, as if I didn't already know.
Still, things cost money, and money is finite, and though my thirst for things cannot be slaked, my finances have forced me to cut off my spending. I want every Etsy lamp that exists, but I don't want to go into four decades worth of debt to make that a reality.
So I came up with a workaround, one that allows me to plan out home redesigns and imagine a perfect, couch pillow-stocked apartment. Instead of buying all the home goods I covet but don't need, I put them in
Right now, I have a Nutribullet, two vanity trays, an air-fryer, and three storage baskets in my Bed, Bath and Beyond cart
Anthropologie keeps emailing me about two lamps and a $68 makeup case I have not and will not ever actually purchase. There's a $99 nude lady torso desk light in an Urban Outfitters cart that I'm paranoid I'll get drunk and hit "buy" on. I've favorited so many mid-century dressers and overpriced accent chairs from West Elm that I suspect they will soon take out a restraining order.
I dream of Target picture frames, decorative knick knacks, and fluffy towel sets. I draw up plans for closet organizers and lay out painter's tape for end tables I don't have. I want to throw out all my current things and replace them with new things. I want every single fancy cocktail glass that exists on the planet.
The other day I described some of the things I wanted to buy but couldn't to a friend of mine, who told me I sound deranged. I am deranged. But in all this, it's making me feel better.
In the Before Times, I did just fine existing among a collection of mismatched broken garbage left behind by previous roommates. My apartment was where I stored my stuff while my life happened elsewhere. But now, life isn't happening anywhere else. Each decadent item, even if it's imagined, shakes up my homebound world and makes it marginally better.
When I imagine buying something, it's like a little investment in the future
When I think about those fluffy towel sets, I imagine handing them to the out-of-town friends I haven't seen in months that'll visit when all this is over. The picture frames will hold photos of me with my loved ones when we can squish our faces together again. My mom, with whom I can't be in the same room until we're both inoculated, will come over for a drink served in my new cocktail glass and give me a hug.
And there's something adult about planning for a home, which I've never had the time or luxury to do. I've got nothing but time now, which is why Wayfair is my homepage and I can tell you the difference between an "apartment sofa" and a full-size couch. (One is smaller, because it's for an apartment. Duh.)
I still don't necessarily have the luxury, hence the online shopping carts. But I'm being more intentional about living in a space, about rooting, about deciding what I like and want without the outside world to dictate it for me. I never bothered considering these things before, home goods-related or otherwise. In a year that feels mostly stagnant, lost and lonely, it's a small step forward.
These are silly little things, real or imagined, but at the moment, they're what I've got.
Rebecca Fishbein is the author of "Good Things Happen To People You Hate" and a contributor to Jezebel. Her work has been published in Gothamist, Baltimore City Paper, Time Out New York, Vice, Splinter, Adweek, The Cut, Lifehacker, and Curbed NY. She lives in Brooklyn.
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