• In the quest for the authentic self, I have run into a snag. Or a bag, if you will. A few weeks ago, a vendor was selling designer handbags in the campus union. Prada, Versace, Gucci, Chanel, you name it. Like every other twenty-something girl, I drooled at the Chanel double C, and the big Versace “V”. “Look at me,” they whispered, “I’ll make you the envy of every girl on campus.” I almost gave in to their siren song and bought a Chanel plastic bracelet. I would have been lost if not for one lone hero, a hero called “Price Tag”. The freakin’ thing cost fifteen dollars! They want fifteen dollars for a chunk of plastic with their logo on it? I’ve seen junk like that at Claire’s for less than two dollars. If that’s the price of acceptance, I’ll stay a loser. I wear what looks good and that’s enough for me and everyone around me. I don’t need a big metal V to be loved or accepted. Anyone who thinks they do needs a serious wake up call. Why should you throw away your hard earned pay on overpriced patent leather and metal? Does it last? Chances are, it won’t be in style next season and you might as well throw your money away with the purse! My brothers and sisters, it is not just handbags of which I speak. I speak of iPhones and Blue Tooths, the latest computer upgrade that cost more than the last. Blue-Ray? We just got VHS tapes out of our system! I say enough. Materialism is taking over and choking the life out of the human spirit and making us forget who we are and what we should be focusing on. An entire culture faces extinction at the hands of a cruel regime in Darfur and nobody seems to care. If we spent half the time we spend on Facebook or (dare I say it) the computer reading a newspaper or doing something to help each other or the world around us, we would be doing much better. Our nation is the fattest in the world, and we would rather sit in front of the TV watching shows we aren’t even paying attention to than exercise. Our children play on the computer instead of outside with friends. We are a nation in a stupor and we need to snap out of it, even me. I believe we are waking from our slumber and beginning to discover that some things are more important than Prada bags and iPods. Yes, there is more to life than that.