Gateway Drugs

Firstly, in praise of the single life, I must say this: I don't have to ask anyone before I make what some would consider a fiscally irresponsible decision.

No one will say to me, "Just because it's half off doesn't mean you have to buy it."

The people who would say that to me, by the way, wouldn't necessarily be in the know. Because it's not just any bargain. It's half-off MARC JACOBS. People, it's half off THIS SEASON MARC JACOBS.

No, wait -- it's half-off-butter-yellow-smoot-as-a-baby's-sweet-pink-bottom leather. It's luxury incarnate. It carries your wallet, your cell phone, your little packet of travel size cosmetics, and an immeasurable amount of holy-fuck-that's-a-gorgeous-Marc-Jacobs-bag STATUS.

I blame the handbag girls. More than anything, I blame the fact that I am back to let's-go-shopping-at-lunchtime agency life. I blame the Kenneth Cole bags, the Coach wristlets, the Furla bag, the Cole Haan bag, the same way junkies everywhere blame that first cigarette, that sweet deep haze of burbon, that exhilarating snort of coke for their eventual heroin-cooking habits.

I talked to the dealer.

I wasn't, it's true, in a nightclub restroom on the dirty floor, I wasn't crouched in the back bedroom of a dark, dank, electricity-free crack house with human feces rotting in the corner.

I was, in fact, in a well-lit, clean, handbag department at Nordstrom, and my dealer was a young man named, improbably, Cliff Countryman.

I know this because when he agreed to put the potentially dangerous dose of handbaggage on hold for me, he gave me his card. He said, "You'll want to call me by the end of the day. This won't be on hold forever."

He said, "You don't find Marc Jacobs half off. Like, ever."

My friends, my Countryman, I'm finding myself drawn, inexorably, into the rabbit hole, beyond the point of no return.

Or, in this case, no returns.

My credit-card hand is twitching above my wallet, Nordstrom is wafting the sweet scent of Italian leather into my office, all of it saying, come back, own me, carry me.

I am a classic.

And just because it's half off. . .

Fuck it. I'll just do it this once.

I'm sure I can stop anytime.