The Reward Purchase

When I was a child one of my favourite jokes went like this:

Lady: Sometimes when I'm down in the dumps I like to buy myself a new dress.

Man: I did wonder where you got them all from.

We're all familiar with the shopping trip designed to provide a distraction or a necessary boost. Feeling sad or bad or hollow? Plug that gap with the right shaped item be it an iced custard slice or a red silk chiffon Ungaro evening cape.

This week, however, it is not consolation shopping I have been pondering so much as the reward purchase. The reward purchase comes after some kind of measurable personal achievement. It is a pat on the back and a fanfare for the self translated into chattels; a material celebration that either marks a promising beginning or a good ending, a difficult situation well handled or a bad one skillfully avoided. It marks a new job, a new baby, a new phase or in my case a new novel finnished after three years hard labour and every possible human interruption you can imagine.

Yet these sorts of gifts are frought with difficulty. They always feel a little risque because they are mildly taboo. Reward oneself? How, well, selfish. Reward oneself? How tragic. Isnt there someone else to do the job? It's very important to be clear abut this because no self-bought present will ever work if deep down you wish it had been bought by someone else. Those pink strappy sandels with the virtiginous heel will make you feel like a clown if you really believe your husband should have picked them out for you.

Amazingly, rewards bought for the self often fail miserably. They can feel a little laboured, a little brazen as if you are trying too hard in a because I'm worth it sort of vein. The whole thing has to be handled delicately because if you get it wrong the ramifications can be quite shaming. You have to take yourself in hand
because if you buy yourself a special treat that proves to be a mistake how stupid does that make you? How could you face yourself in the morning?

In choosing my end of novel gift I found myself turning to the subject matter of my book as a guide to purchase. But the book just isn't promising in that way. A black comedy about a marriage guidance counsellor who goes off the rails when her teenage duaghter leaves home.....there's barely a shopping scene in the entire plot. Granted there's a trip to an interesting pawn brokers on Edgware Road, but that's hardly the right setting for a celebratory spree.

I tried to cast my mind back to things I have recently admired. I wondered about some sugar pink Pneidor correspondence cards I saw in Florence that were engraved in raised white script with the words Whitney Houston - but that kind of printing would take weeks to organise and besides I dont much like to copy other people. I have been a little preoccupied lately with a vastly expensive miracle moisturiser made by Norwegian nuns from a second century recipe called Creme Ancienne but I cant help thinking its been a long time since I saw a nun with a great complexion (although I have never been to Norway) and besides I am more than happy with my Creme de la Mer. It's true there are some acquamarine and pink morganite Christian Dior earrings at Harrrods I am a little bit in love with - they are called Belle de Nuit- but they are nearly eleven thousand pounds.

Suddenly the whole idea of a reward seemed a bit depressing.
I know I don't really want these things. I just enjoy liking them. I had forgotten how vulnerable you make yourself when you try and communicate your feelings through buying things. And then suddenly it came to me. I feel really pleased with myself for finishing the book and maybe (for now) that's enough.