The Little Drummer Boy :)

This chaotic graphic, courtesy the NY Times, provides an entry way into Suffer. Spend. Repeat, an insightful and spot on article by Oliver Burkeman, telling us rubes why stores make it really painful to, as the immortal George Carlion would say, Buy stuff you don't need with money you don't have.

In these final weeks before Christmas, it may strike you that retailers have gone out of their way to make holiday shopping as unpleasant an experience as possible. The odd truth is that they probably have. And there’s a reason for that: evidence suggests that the less comfortable you are during the seasonal shopping spree, the more money you’ll spend.
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So stores crank up music, repeat the same songs, over and over again, pipe in smells, race shoppers around to far-flung points of purchase and clog their heads with confusing offers. All of which makes it more likely we’ll part more readily with more money.

So have a nice day while enduring the skinner box that awaits us all as we do the annual pilgrimage we all do in buying "Stuff we don't need with money we don't have." :)