Back to earth

It's funny how a wedding shifts one's view of economy. For six months, you have to beat people off with a stick to keep them from giving you appliances. Jeff and I purposely didn't register anywhere and asked people to give to Oxfam instead, which worked very well. But there were still people who couldn't stand it and needed to give us those teflon pancake molds.

I think the Target website embodies the worst of the gift registry. No matter what you're looking at - a sofa, a video game, a lipstick - there's a button so you can add it to your wedding or baby registry. If there's anything you want, Target indicates, you can throw a party and ask your friends to buy it for you.

It's true. There's a brief frenzy during which people want to lavish attention and material goods on you. We even did some of it ourselves - last winter Jeff and I went to a pawn shop to get our wedding rings as Christmas presents for each other. At $75, my ring is probably the most expensive piece of jewelry I'll ever own.

And then . . . it's over. After living with Jeff's family for a year, we're now looking at flying the coop. As I tally up what we could take with us, I've realized how many of "our" things are actually borrowed. The things we do and don't own are sometimes laughable. We own:

An immersion blender but no saucepan.
A banjo, mandolin, guitar, stroh violin, bass, and maybe 6 whistles, but no CD player.
An oscilloscope but not a bed.
120 forks but no spoons.