There's No Place Like Home...

The media is a very powerful and persuading thing; it is full of advertisements that are constantly telling sending the message that if you do not have what they are selling there is just no way that you can be happy.  It seems that we cannot escape from advertisements; everywhere I look there is a new billboard, magazine or commercial telling us that we need that certain product or service to survive.  But most of the time, the items that are being advertised are either useless or unnecessary or both!  And what do we do?  Of course we buy the item because if we don not buy the item we are not in with the crowd.

Shopping for worthless and unnecessary things has become such a big problem for some people that they develop an obsession for it and become compulsive buyers and are labeled as “shopaholics”.  In some ways we are all shopaholics, of different levels, I find that when I go shopping, a lot of times I come home with things that I did not intend to buy but when I was in the store, I just had to get “it”.

In Salman Rushdie’s book of short stories “East, West” on of the stories, At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers, has memorabilia junkies buying things that really don not have value to them.  “Men and women of dubious character are present-untouchables, outcasts.” (pg. 93).  They attend an auction to buy things that were in the movie, “The Wizard of Oz” such as Wizards, Lions, Scarecrows, Totos and most importantly the Ruby Slippers that Dorothy wore.  These memorabilia junkies have come from everywhere in the world to be present at the auction and they are of high status.  The bidders are obsessed with the slippers and believe that they hold some type of magical power.  “We revere the ruby slippers because we believe they can make us invulnerable to witches…” (pg. 93).

The narrator attends the action and is there to buy the slippers for the love of his life Gale, his cousin.  Years prior to the action Gale cheated and broke up with him and since he has become obsessed with her.  Although they have not communicated in any form, he believes that if he buys the ruby slippers he can magical get Gale back.  “Perhaps I might even click the heels together three times, and win back her heart by murmuring, ‘There’s no place like home.’” (pg. 98).

When my parents see me talking on my cell phone or listening to music on my iPod they almost give me the “when I was growing up we didn’t need any of that stuff to be happy” lecture.  I am sure that most of us have heard that lecture at least once and we brush it off and do not think much of it.  But if we really think about it is true.  Years ago our parents were without cell phones and most without computers and they seem to have happy lives.  Hope is not lost for us to be happy, we just have to be stronger than the media and resist the temptation of buys all those wonderful worthless things.