The jingle of plastic

Jingle, jingle, jingle;

KaChing, KaChing, KaChing.

It's that time of year again, when people love to run up those purchases with the vague sense that they will be able to pay them off before they start again next year.

R is an attractive woman in her mid-forties. She sits on one end of the couch half- turning toward her husband, who sits at the other end, looking a bit forlorn.

R is already wearing her red reindeer sweater. The red shows up her newly refreshed blond hair, and it is complimented by her bright red nails. She has a tight black skirt over seasonal red and green tights, which are tucked into her shiny black boots. She is clearly well turned out and well maintained. She is doing a good, but probably expensive job of holding back time.

She and her heavy-set, rumpled husband are with me to work on some long-standing issues of trust and honesty. He is a builder, and a while ago he had collaborated a little too closely with one of his clients. But S. has had a few things to cover up of her own.

In the last session some things were alluded to, but not made clear. Now that they were brave enough to come back, they have already gone through some implying and some equivocating, and it was now time to get to reality.

Through her tears it was difficult, but not impossible to make out the number $32,000.

This was the amount charged on three credit cards that were kept secret from last year until now. Last year, when he sold two houses, a chunk of those proceeds went to paying off the cards that no longer exist. He thought the problem was over. The cards were destroyed. But, like many other addictions, this one just went underground until it exploded.

This was my fourth such revelation in the last two weeks. Not all were $32K, but, they were all excessive, relative to the income, and all were secret. They seem to surface around the shopping season, when the credit line needs to be extended.

This is a particularly American addiction. From why I read the Chinese may be catching it, but their banking system has not reached the point of mailing every person three credit card solicitations a week. It's like mailing a drunk a bottle of Jack every Friday. And now, if you miss a payment, the interest rates can get to 30%, which means you will never catch up.

Credit cards like this didn't exist thirty years ago. You had to bounce checks then, and that was much harder to continue.

But the problem is fed by so many streams: people who never had access to things want them badly. People who are unsure of themselves need to show the world their style. People who think they deserve it, (and they do) but they can see that they're not going to get it. People want their children to have what they never had.

Some people just love to shop -- I have seen many people who never even take the tags off, and have rebuilt their garage into a big closet, and are back in the stores.

But also, more than before, the celebrity lifestyle is so, well, celebrated. The brand-name this, the designer that,trucks,handbags, boots, jewelry, breasts, as well as the expensive martinis and the limos, all cost a lot of money. And the bill doesn't even have to show up. If you click a button it gets sent right to your email address -- no paper for anyone to find. It's all too easy.

Enjoy the holiday, but if you are hiding the tab, even from yourself, come clean before you realize you can't pay the heating bills that will come after New Years. Find out what's really missing in your life. Putting all that cashmere into the furnace doesn't generate a lot of warmth.