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That consumption has increasingly become a hobby has probably not gone unnoticed. It’s long been a perfectly legitimate weekend treat for families with kids to go to the nearest mall to … engage in self-injurious behavior, if you ask me. I never dragged my husband or my children to the stores because it totally defeated the purpose of shopping in peace and quiet. And since the crown came into our lives, I have bought almost everything online.
At the noon sale these days, I’ll buy new winter shoes for a boy and a mixer for the kitchen, because that’s what it takes. To buy just because you can and in accordance with a constructed and imagined “need”, I have forced myself to stop. We already have in abundance. Many of us in this country have just that; material things in abundance.
Still, the noon sale, being physically crowded with others in the stores, licking their sweat and the pulse rising to allow time to raffle quickly, is obviously as important a tradition as the holiday celebration itself.
Every year we Swedes buy an average of 50 new clothes per person. At the same time, more than 70 percent of us don’t even use half of everything we have in our closet. And since the pandemic hit, sales of consumer electronics have increased significantly. In fact, we spend 50 billion SEK on failed purchases annually. It costs approximately SEK 7,000 per person per year. I guess a lot of these unnecessary incorrect purchases are made these days, during the noon sale.
Many people get angry when they talk about excessive consumption, they claim that buying or not buying on sale is a matter of class. Obviously, this text is not about single mothers, poor retirees or other people who can only afford to buy certain things they need when there is a sale.
This text deals with the large group of consumers, the middle class and those of economic sour cream who, according to all statistics, are the ones that contribute the most to the depletion of the planet’s resources. Poor people leave the least climatic footprint, if anyone has imagined otherwise.
This text is aimed at those of you who can afford to buy a new mobile phone or giant TV these days, not because you really need it, but because it is fun to have the latest model or an even bigger screen to show off to the Poles. Or for you who already have a double digit number of pairs of jeans but only need to have one more pair. It’s a sale!
You who feel a pleasure to bring home bags of new things that you know are not necessary at all, or your heart rate increases a little when the announcement of another new package arrives. You are the culprit here. You are the reason the midday sale breaks records year after year, and it is because of your excessive consumption that Svensk Handel refuses to listen to both the government and the Swedish Public Health Agency this year.
It is still a kind of human right to spend money on the noon sale, even in physical stores. Noon sales don’t break the law, scream those wanting to break new sales records. No, but this year not only is it further depleting the earth’s resources, it is also spreading a virus that has so far killed more than 8,000 Swedes.
But maybe it’s worth it when the living room would be even better with a bigger TV, or the butt even better with a new pair of skinny jeans.
