It will help me study better, I swear!

In the 1953 movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn Monroe's iconic showgirl character, Lorelai, justifies her lust for wealth by explaining that if one has plenty of money, they don't need to spend any time being worried about money, and more time concentrating on being in love. I apply a similar philosophy to studying. It's stressful enough as it is, but if you indulge in little wants whilst trying to study, you can concentrate more on what it is you are trying to learn. In this way I have managed to justify a number of purchases, because they will help me study better!

During exam week, I invested in four pairs of shoes, a book about geek culture, and a slight change of hair colour on the pretence that I would study better. I convinced my mother to buy me pink smart water and smarties, telling her that they would make me smarter- it didn't work, but she still doesn't know that as I've not told her my exam results yet. I even made her finally get me a new bed, as my old one was on the verge of collapsing. So it was with much relief that the end of exams were embraced, if only for the reduced strain on mum's and my bank accounts.

However, it is not all over yet. I have a history SAC on Thursday, which I have been intensely studying for all weekend and still know very little of. It crossed my mind yesterday that perhaps I need to spend some money so that I can study better. The only problem was coercing my mother to agree with me. Yesterday afternoon, we were happily driving home when she spotted a giant waving bear on the side of the world.
"Oh my god, what the hell is that?" she exclaimed and slowed down to have a closer look at it, in almost peak-hear traffic on Warrigal Road. "Oh, it's just a person in a bear suit advertising a sale."
"Oh my god, a sale!" I squealed, realising it was an underwear/sleepwear distributer, the same one that had a sale this time last year, where I purchased the most amazing underwear I've owned in my life: Aussie boxers. I rapidly explained this in one breath, before demanding that we stop there, on the premise it will help me study for history for reasons that I hadn't quite figured out yet.
"No, I can't be bothered, blah blah blah..." Clearly she did not appreciate the gravity of such a sale.

I spotted a McDonald's on the corner of the next intersection, so decided to change my stratagem, as bordering on a tantrum wasn't working. "Can we go to Maccas? Can we, can we, can we?"
Despite my hate for McDonald's, I convinced her that buying me an ice-cream would help me study better once I get home, as that was a lot easier than convincing her that going to an underwear sale would help. She reluctantly agreed, which resulted in my having an extra five minutes to persuade her of the benefits of buying things I don't need. Going through the drive through had the added benefit of pointing our car in the direction that it needed to go in to head back to the sale, which is a major advantage as she is horrible at driving, and if she had attempted to turn around whilst we continued in the same direction as before, we could well be dead by now.
Eventually she relented and agreed to stop at the sale, on the condition that I spend no more than twenty minutes there. I had just one more concern...
"Can I borrow $50? I have no cash on me." Seeing her face upon this request, I manipulated my facial expression into one resembling a sad bulldog and said... "it will help me study better!"

Fifteen minutes and thirty dollars later, I emerged from the sale with new flannelette pyjamas, cotton pyjama pants, three singlet tops and more aussie underwear. And you know what?
As I sit here wearing the same pyjamas I have refused to get out of for the last sixteen hours, I think it did help me study better.

That's also how I managed to justify the last four mugs of instant coffee... coffee is so much better than food. In a perfect world, everyone would be sustained by instant coffee, and whoever invented it would be the leader of the world. According to Wikipedia, it was invented by some Japanese guy in 1901. So that must be why there were relatively few technological advances before then. Suddenly it all makes sense.