I am the ideal shopper. Not for myself, but for the places I shop. When supermarkets carefully plan their layouts and decide what to put on sale, they are desperately hoping that I will walk into the store. Alas, I am powerless before the clever plans of the supermarket architects.

    A few weeks ago, a friend and I went to the local Big Y. Already, I am incredibly susceptible to sales. But she had this terrible habit of pointing them out, with the result that I bought 24 cans of corn that I don't know what to do with. A typical exchange went like this:

"Look, soup is on sale!"
"I don't really eat soup."
"But you could! It's like a whole meal in a can, for a dollar!"
"I suppose I could buy a few."
"Dude, you should stock up!"
"But when will I eat twelve cans of soup?"
"It's in a can, it doesn't go bad!"
"Okay, I guess I'll just buy a dozen cans of soup, then."

    And thus twelve cans of soup ended up in my cart. Seventy-seven dollars and nine bags of food later, I unloaded the food into my pantry.

    Today, I went shopping again. This time, I went with a friend who is less sale-driven. However, my inner bargain-hunter took over, and I ended up buying roughly everything in the store that was Buy One, Get Two Free. Such a deal! Who am I to pass this up? And so in spite of the fact that I would never buy any of it on purpose, I found myself with imitation crab meat, kielbasa, and hot dogs, all in triplicate. In short, I am sending the following message to the supermarkets of the world: If you put an edible commodity on sale for a very good price, regardless of what it is, I will buy it. For I am the American consumer, a mindless automaton driven solely by savings.

    Also, this weekend my parents came up and helped me put curtains, shades, and blinds on my house. Now I just have to clean up the inside, and then I can invite you over.