Cupidity

I dreamt a former friend of mine had married. Though he and his new wife were both well into their 40s, she was, surprisingly, preggers. There was, of course, a posh baby shower with the invitations giving links to where the mega proud budding parents were registered.

When did baby registries become a thing? Have they always existed, like bridal registries? I honestly don’t know. Baby registries, when the parents-to-be are financially cozy, strike me as terribly crass displays of GIMME GIMME GIMME. When the soon to be mummy and da aren't well off? Still kind of wasteful.

Evelyn Lauer explains why in her great post, Why You Might Want to Rethink Your Baby Registry, at HuffPo:

DON’T BUY A THING!

This is what I want to say, but I don’t because I remember what it’s like to be pregnant and excited about changing pads and socks that can fit on your thumbs. But really, I want to give this woman all of my old baby stuff: the boxes and boxes of clothes, the bibs, the bottles, the Bumbo, the breast pump, the bouncy seat, the Baby Bjorn, the board books, the Boppy — all of it! We think we want it all — until we don’t.

Have we wretched humans always been so greedily acquisitive for the shiny new, new, MUST-BE-NEW?

We sit through baby showers and watch as the mother-to-be opens, let’s say, a brand new pack-and-play; meanwhile, I have four at home she could have.

Read Lauer's short post. It’s absolutely perfect.

In any case, back at my dream, Jen and I were sitting at the bar of one of our usual hangs, reviewing their list of desired swag and talking about the absurdity of their VERY expensive, everything’s-gotta-be-gleamingly-brand-y-new requests. From there we moved on to rehashing WHY this person’s a former versus current friend and then she dropped the bomb. She’d already bought the wished for carriage and some other cher fancy. For someone we’d decided to unknow, we were out over a grand.

OUCH!!!

At breakfast this morning, I must ask Jen for her reasoning. This just doesn’t make any sense. Even if we were still chums with the couple, we don't have the spare cabbage for this shit!

What? This was a dream and Jen wasn’t in control of her nocturnal spending nor would she know the whys of it? Huh. The hell you say!