They say that money can't buy happiness, but it sure can buy a lot of crazy stuff on the Internet.

See, I have a problem with shopping. I buy stupid things. My girlfriend won't even let me go to the grocery store by myself anymore. You know that rack of candy, gum, and batteries they have next to the checkout lane? Yeah, that's pretty much where I buy all my groceries.

Don't think that's bad? Just cook dinner for your significant other sometime, and try making chicken cordon bleu out of Chick-O-Sticks and Doublemint.

Impulse buying can hit anytime, anywhere. Like when you're flipping through the channels late at night. Let's just say that, at Christmas, I get more cards from Ron Popeil and the Home Shopping Network than I do from my own family.

There's no way to deny it. I'm addicted to impulse shopping.

On a whim, I bought an old psychology book at a flea market last week and, after flipping through a few pages, I discovered this addiction is actually my mother's fault. According to the book, my mother infected me with this love of impulse buying at a very young age. I can remember her taking me by the hand and leading me through garage sales and blue light specials. I grew up surrounded by tiny ceramic frogs, velvet paintings, and novelty treasures like petrified moose poop from Alaska.

The Internet has become my downfall. All you need is a credit card, and the whole world will come to you. T-shirts, books, movies, fake vomit, ZZ-Top beards, peanut butter… Did you know you can buy peanut butter online? You can! (But I don't recommend it.)

Up until last week, I thought everything would be fine. My mother always told me that impulse buying was a phase, like bed wetting, and that someday I'd grow out of both. But there's a lesson here — never take the word of a woman who owns petrified moose poop.

A few months ago, I found the impulse buy of a lifetime. It was late, I was online, and somehow I came across a mail-order bride web page.

I knew I was in trouble as soon as I saw the VISA logo. So I did it. And I didn't even order over-night shipping.

I've pieced most of this together from eyewitness accounts, educated guesses, and the UPS tracking website. Apparently my mail-order bride spent two months in a wooden crate, surrounded by straw packing. She crossed the ocean, leaving behind home and family and probably a whole lot of goats or chickens. All because I had a whim while I was up late on the Internet, looking for a gift to apologize to my girlfriend for the Chick-O-Stick Cordon Bleu.

Turns out, they delivered the mail-order bride to my neighbor by mistake, along with my TV Guide and some bills. My neighbor's a real piece of work. That jerk made a point to give me back the bills, but kept my mail-order bride. AND the TV Guide!

When she didn't turn up, I just assumed the mail-order bride was lost in the mail. I got my money back, and my girlfriend never had a chance to get mad at me for ordering a woman off the Internet. But I guess my neighbor never figured out what to do with a mail-order bride, because he only kept her around long enough to clean the house before tossing her out.

I found her in the trash by the curb, still in her wooden crate. She begged me to end her suffering. I think. It wasn't in English, so I could have been wrong, but I did what I had to do.

I wrote "Return to Sender" on her and stuck her back in the mailbox.

She's gone now, and my girlfriend has been pleasantly surprised by how little impulse shopping I've been doing. Because now, whenever I feel that urge to shop coming over me, I reach into my pocket and pull out the invoice for that impulse buy of a lifetime. It helps me remember that impulse shopping is bad, and it also reminds me to go look next door when the TV Guide's missing.

Copyright © 2006 Andy Murphy
Please do not remove the copyright from this work.

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