with twenty seconds to spare! My basket is intact! My credit-card details are stored; this should take no time….
Your password is not secure.
A pop-up has stopped me in my tracks, and I stare at it breathlessly. What’s the problem now? I peer at the screen, reading the rest of the message.
Would you like to change your password? We suggest C?/x887dau.
I bet they do. Well, they can just sod off. My password is fine. Carefully, I type in Ermintrude2 and click a final Complete.
I lean back in my chair, panting as a new message appears on the screen. Congratulations! You saved £879 today!
I mean, it just shows. A penny saved is a penny earned, which means I’ve effectively earned £879. In one online shopping session! If I made that every day, it would be…I shut my eyes, trying to calculate. Well, anyway, a six-figure salary. I think sometimes Luke doesn’t appreciate this fact about me: that I’m quietly generating our family thousands of pounds, all the time.
The only thing is, now I should buy something ethical. This is a habit that my sister, Jess, got me into. (Half sister, really.) Jess is very right on and frugal, and we were once having a lively debate—well, argument—about shopping. I was saying it supported the economy and she was saying the economy didn’t deserve to be supported. And then she said, “I mean, Becky, if you just shopped ethically once in a while…”
And that spoke to me. In fact, it made me feel stricken with guilt. I should shop ethically. We all should! So I started a little habit—when I’ve been on a shopping spree I try to buy something ethical too. Like those people who buy trees to make up for flying on planes.
I log on to the Ethical Consumer Today site and peer at the home page. The only trouble is, I’ve already bought nearly everything from this site. I’ve got the beeswax candles and fair-trade coffee and all the yoga bracelets….
Wait. New product! Organic spicy falafel mix. Perfect! You can’t have too much organic spicy falafel mix, can you? I quickly order eight packets (free delivery), complete my purchase with one click, and sit back with satisfaction. I’ll tell Luke we’re going to have Falafel Night every Tuesday, which we should do anyway, because it’s healthy.
At the thought of Luke, I reach forward and increase the volume of my mindfulness meditation, and it’s just in time, because the door opens, right as the mindfulness guy is saying, “Let go of your worries.”
I turn round to Luke and give him a calm, mindful smile.
“Hi!” I say.
“I thought I’d give you a heads-up,” Luke says apologetically. “We need to leave for the restaurant in about fifteen minutes. How’s it going?”
“Good,” I say. “Really good.”
“You look radiant.” He surveys me admiringly. “Kind of, I don’t know. Serene. Content.”
“I feel content!” I beam back at him.
Three Denny and George scarves for £30 each! How could I not feel content? I’ll give one to Suze for her birthday and I’ll save one for Minnie….
“I’m so glad you’ve found this for yourself,” says Luke, dropping a kiss on my head. “I used to be skeptical about all this meditation business, but you’ve convinced me.”
“It’s just a question of applying your mind to what really matters in life,” I say wisely, as the doorbell rings.
Luke goes out to answer it and I hear a series of thumping noises from the hall. A few moments later the front door closes and Luke’s head reappears round the door.
“Some deliveries for you,” he says.
“Ooh!” I light up. “Deliveries!”
* * *
—
I love the way online shopping just comes to you. I hurry out to see three boxes and a plastic ASOS package in the hall. Excellent! I was hoping my ASOS delivery would arrive in time for this evening. I grab the package, slit it open with the scissors I keep in the hall for exactly this reason, and out slither four navy satin jumpsuits.
“Wow,” says Luke, staring down at the sea of navy satin. “That’s a lot of…whatever they are. Did you need that many?”
“I’m not going to keep them all,” I say, as though explaining remedial algebra to a fairly promising student. “You don’t keep them all. You try them on and keep one and send the rest back. And they were half price,” I add for good measure, ripping open the size 12 long and holding it up. “Total bargain.”