The Bracelet of Shame

It's taken me ages to be able to face writing about the “Bracelet of Shame”. This piece has been sitting in the depths of my brain wailing to get out and ironically it's the shame that's made me procrastinate for so long.

Not so long ago it was my mother's 50th Birthday. In my world this is a big deal because I love my mum and I love buying gifts; I especially love buying gifts for my mum. I've got this thing for Audrey Hepburn, I think it's the fact that she can't sing for shit but looks killer in a little black number. Breakfast at Tiffany's made me drool over Tiffany's jewellery without having even gone into the store. I made up my mind that only one gift would suffice for this occasion and that was something from Tiffany's. I'm actually blushing as I write this because it gets so bad.

I'm into online shopping. When I say I'm "into" online shopping that's actually one mammoth understatement. If my life was made into a movie it would be called "Breakfast at Amazon.com". Seriously, I cannot go one day without adding stuff to my shopping trolley; books I've always wanted to own but haven't bothered to buy, dvd box sets, kitchen gadgets, shoes etc. The best thing is you simply pick what you want, click the mouse a couple of times and hey presto you've just maxed out your credit card. It's genius. The other benefit of Amazon is that you wait for your shit to arrive and when it does it's all boxed up nicely and it's a massive surprise. I like surprises they float my boat. I especially love surprises when they arrive first thing on a Monday morning.

It is this faith in online shopping that is my nemesis. I automatically assume that everything that you purchase in cyberspace must be fabulous. So it was that I went to tiffanystore.com and did the unthinkable. I purchased this beautiful bracelet (so the picture led me to believe) that was marked down from £159 to £49. 'Too good to be true' I hear you muse. Well you'd be right. In my defence there was some lame story about no one buying jewellery in the recession hence major price cuts aka "sales". Cringe. So £59 spent, including postage and packaging, and as I click the mouse for the final time my heart drops and I feel like I've just contributed to the illegal arms race.

Unlike my little Amazon gems this parcel arrived with a clap of doom. I guess the feeling I got was similar to the one I get when I receive that letter from the NHS telling me that I'm due for a pap smear. Joy! When the parcel was handed over I immediately put it in my bottom drawer. I caught a couple of Chinese characters as it was being handed over by the post room guy, special Chinese characters typed by little Chinese slave labourers. Fuck.

Initially the contents of the package didn't look too bad . Good turquoise box, nice turquoise carrier bag, fantastic turquoise mock-velvet jewellery pouch, lovely nice shiny-as-shit bracelet proudly shouting 'hey cheap skate I'm fake!' Double Fuck.

It took me a day or so to open the bottom drawer of my desk. I even converted the bastard shiny bracelet from pounds back into Commercial ZARs to add value to my status as the world's biggest muppet. There was only one thing for it. Tequila and shit piles of it.

Tequila led to drunken debauchery, which led to having sexy times with a bloke with a girlfriend. Monday morning I wanted to bowl for Columbine in my office. Not only did I have to face the piece of shit bracelet in my desk drawer. Not only had I shagged a guy with a betty. BUT I also had nothing to give my mum for her birthday.

I opened my desk, undid the cheap clasp on the bracelet and emancipated my bad tiffanystore.com purchase. Throughout the day as the cheap silver clanked on my desk, as I typed out boring client emails, I actually smiled. Each clank of silver was greeted with a liberated buzz as I realised just how shameful I should feel. The shame of buying cheap shit on the Internet, the shame of being a home wrecker and the shame thinking I was back to square one on the gift front.
Since then the Bracelet of Shame has practically been soldered to my wrist. This bodes well for the longevity of my fake tiffanystore.com purchase, especially because if I’m not wearing it one of my mates is. The thing is wearing the bracelet is like “sitting in the corner and thinking about what you’ve done”. Once you’re removed from the corner you go back to being a pain in the ass and smacking your sister around.