Shopping fever, the beloved virus of capitalism, infected me at an early age. I’ve been consuming conspicuously ever since puberty, and I confess I enjoy this pastime as much as any other red-blooded American.

In junior high school, when I first expressed a desire for Ralph Lauren, my mother informed me that my champagne tastes would never fly on a beer budget and told me to get a job. At the supper table, her husband belched: “You don’t know the value of a dollar!”

Judging from the number of expensive polyester leisure suits gathering dust in his closet (I’m sure I counted at least 11 in the early ’80s), I would trust my own clothes-shopping instincts more than his. I can’t help wondering if he still has any of those suits, though. I probably have encountered them already — in a Salvation Army Store — as crisp and apple green as they were back in the day.

I started thrift shopping in 1982 after I realized my position in the box office of a movie theater would not enable me to finance my champagne tastes. My first adolescent visit to the Goodwill was a spiritual awakening. After years of tagging along with well-heeled friends every weekend at the mall, enviously watching them score up on alligator shirts and Calvin Klein jeans, I had found my new self.

My high school years were the heyday of Los Angeles hard-core fans; mohair sweaters, ’50s rockabilly shirts and pointed shoes were the must-haves. Second-hand stores in Iowa had not been plundered by vintage-hungry flea marketers so the Door of Faith Mission Shop was fully stocked. Sweaters for two dollars! Shoes for one dollar! Shirts for 50 cents! Thus, I pitched my “Preppy Handbook” and bought into an affordable new identity: New Wave Tommy. It was silly, of course, and I’ve almost grown out of “thrifting” at the ripe old age of 31. Gucci and Donatella Versace can revive sharkskin suits and even sell them to everyone attending the VH1 Fashion Awards, but somehow I doubt that we’ll see very many cocktail zombies modeling them on Lincoln Way. I may eat my words, but I’m glad that I gave my sharkskin suits back to the Goodwill.

Still, after accumulating more than 70 mohair sweaters between my sophomore and senior years of high school, I learned a highly important fact that most people never seem to realize: Contemporary shopping malls sell a lot of garbage. What grandparents have been trying to tell us all along is the truth; they really don’t make stuff like they did in the good old days.

Even worse, our modern consumer culture has enslaved developing countries. The power of economics has forced them to manufacture this newfangled crap for a fraction of what Americans pay for it.

I am probably safe in assuming that most Americans, who accidentally read about the plight of sweat shop laborers in developing nations, will say to themselves, “Wow. Gosh. Bummer…” and then later use part of the same page as scratch paper for a shopping list. But if the unfairness of this situation fails to disturb them, then I know something that ought to make a sweater girl think: You just can’t buy decent new woolens off the rack anymore.

I doubt that I will ever regret giving up the sharkskin suits, but I wish I had kept all my mohair sweaters. I once owned a vintage wool pull-over for eight years. I bought that beautiful garment for less than five dollars at the D.A.V., and it always looked as good as new.

Hasn’t anyone noticed the dramatic decline in quality of wool sweaters since the early ’80s? I bought a “name-brand” sweater at our loathsome North Grand Small here in Ames this spring. (No, that was not a typo, and can someone please tell me why there is no GAP here?) Anyway, this sweater sucked about fifty dollars out of my wallet, and after I had worn it twice without even washing the blessed thing, it was covered with hundreds of lint-like balls.

When I bitterly complained about this dilemma to my friend who studies fashion design, he said, “What you need is one of those little sweater shaver things they sell at Walgreens. I can’t believe you don’t have one. I’ve had mine for a few years now.” While he explained this to me, he wore a facial expression that seemed to say, “As if!” so I felt like an ill-bred clodhopper and headed directly for Walgreens to purchase my own personal “little sweater shaver thing” and two batteries.

Every other week during the spring, I would devote part of a Saturday morning to grooming my sweater with this “little sweater shaver thing.” During these maintenance sessions, I often telephoned my friend who had recommended it to me, and while we chatted, he would perform sweater-maintenance with his own device.

There we sat, chatting on our telephones with our “little sweater shaver things,” buzz-buzz-buzzing away the time. Attention shoppers, it’s time to wake up.

Tom Owings is a graduate student in English from Ames. He is the opinion editor of the Daily.