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It's one of those days when I'm dissatisfied. I don't like what I look like. I don't like the stuff in my room. I don't like my boring life.

I need more stuff to feel better. To feel new.

I go to the mall because it promises to help me. The Gap, Express, Gadzooks, Rave, American Eagle. I can't miss.

At Abercrombie and Fitch, the posters on the walls show clean-cut guys playing touch football with shiny-haired girls. They're having a blast in plaid shirts and khaki pants. One girl has a big sweatshirt tied casually around her thin waist—a cute tomboy. They're laughing in that picture, the clean-cut boys and the shiny-haired girls. They're having more fun in their Abercrombie and Fitch clothes than I've had in months.

At The Athlete's Foot, a picture of Michael Johnson hangs over a wall of running shoes. He's won his second Olympic gold medal while wearing his gleaming gold shoes. The message behind the image is clear: There's nothing greater in life than winning. With some hi-tech shoes of my own, maybe I'd feel like less of a loser.

At Contempo Casuals, the brown-and-green sweater on the skinny mannequin promises to make me look thin and trendy. The sales girls are so cool in their platform shoes and short skirts. If I looked like them, wearing that close-fitting brown-and-green sweater, I might have more dates.

At Rave, I see a girl with bleached hair and black lipstick. She's eyeing a green mini-skirt covered with sequins. I wonder what great party she'll wear it to. I wonder what's it's like to be that cool.

But she hangs up the skirt and walks out of the store. And I notice something I hadn't seen when she was standing behind the rack of clothes.

I notice the bulky stroller she's pushing, the fussy baby who's sick of being confined. I notice the tired look in the mother's eyes, the way she walks toward a bench where she can rest for a minute and calm her baby.

And I realize she's probably not going to any great party. She can buy all the green mini-skirts in the mall, but she's still going home to her life as a teenage mother. Nothing in the mall can change that.

And I realize the mall can't change my life either. I don't think of myself as a materialistic person. In fact, I buy lots of my clothes at thrift stores. I drive an ugly old car. My friends even tease me about being cheap.

Still, I find myself wanting things. Not because I need them, but because they seem like they'll make me more interesting, more exciting. Like somehow, the stuff I own can change the life I have. When I look at the ads in magazines or on TV, that's what stuff promises me: A better life, a better me.

Yeah, I know it's just hype, but a part of me can't help but believe those promises are true—at least a little bit.

But I'd like to think I'm a lot more than my stuff. I'd like to think my friends like me because I'm funny, nice, and easy to talk to, not because I have cool clothes. I'd like to think I can like myself even though I don't have the latest music or the hippest shoes. I'd like to think I have value because I'm me, not because I have the "right" stuff.

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