One must be wary of buying hats. They are sneaky creatures that trick you in the store and so often lose their charm when pulled out of your closet. But a good hat, a perfect headband, a perky flower lovely enough people suggest you spray it with perfume … any of these good accessories on your head can make all the difference in the world.

I’ve never known I was closer to home than when I was flying back from Paris, France to Dallas, Texas, and found a SkyMall magazine in my seat pocket. Granted, I was flying high on Dramamine and a Jim Beam and Coke, but I could have sworn I had died and gone to aeronautic heaven. America, I’d missed you: Who could have forgotten such knick-knack paddy whack pleasures still exist?

Perusing this catalog of crap is almost like the joy I felt as a child picking out a gross (144 pieces) of worthless birthday party favors from Oriental Trading Company (...the name is for real). I was in deep, puppy-sick love with the materiality of shitty goods. Mmm, first world buying power, you taste so sweet.

We’re fucked unless we get people spending again. Tax cuts, government initiatives, refunds, rebates, shovel-ready projects — all forms of stimulation designed to pad the American wallet, to give America a little walkin’ around money as they jazz up the ol’ infrastructure, to get people spending again. This is our real solution to the depression.

Ultimately, we don’t need bailouts or tax cuts or green jobs, but spending. We, the American people, gotta get spending like it’s 1998. Politicians may disagree about the means of stimulation, but there is no doubt that America has to get back to what America does best — consume. Buy shit, people. Spend that hard-earned dime on something real nice, because it’s only as good as what you can buy with it.

NEW YORK (AP) — If you're looking for an extra bargain before the holidays, you may only have to ask.

With holiday sales shaping up to be the lowest in years, possibly the worst since the industry began annual comparisons in 1969, retailers say they're taking consumers' demands for good deals seriously. Some are extending return policies, while others are matching competitors' prices. Many are volunteering on-the-spot discounts and even letting customers haggle prices well down from what's marked in a desperate bid to make the cash register ring.

"You'd have to be a moron not to ask for a discount," said Stephen Hoch, a retailing expert at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

If there’s anything I like better than a one-fer, it’s a two-fer.

For you folks not hip to my slang (and there could be a great lot of you … I have been known to make up a word or two), a “two-fer” is a “two-for-one” deal; i.e. I pay for one awesome thing, and, due to the “magic” of Capitalism, I get two things at a roughly-equal-but-let’s-be-realistic-never-more-than-one-and-a-half-times-more-expensive-than-usual price (and let’s not think about who’s disadvantaged by this scheme for now). Well, in two-fer deals, it’s really just that I get one awesome thing and one extra, usually seriously shoddy thing.

But who cares!

As this is my last column for this year, (sad face), in lieu of a single theme I am going to open my Mary Poppins-bag of fashion tips and tricks to get you through the rest of the semester and get you excited/ready for the summer with the clothes you already own.