Add to Cart

Our complicated relationship with stuff.

Some people build a coming-of-age lore around their first kiss or sip of alcohol or puff of weed. My version involves retail. It was a black nylon DKNY purse I spied at the mall when I was sixteen. It took weeks of my part-time job at the local library to save up for it — the first “nice” thing I’d ever bought myself.

I can still feel my fingers curled a…