Shopping is our favorite national pastime.
Indeed, a Martian anthropologist might conclude that The Mall is our place of worship, and shopping the central ritual of communion with our deity. If we keep shopping, we may all drop - and take many other life forms with us. The 12-step movement has already embraced shopping as a bona fide addiction. While temperance may be a virtue, however, it will take more than virtue to convert us from our shopping religion. Into this void I offer the following list of simple activities one can do, at little or no cost.