by Diane Chiang

Toys accumulated in one corner of our living room. Finger puppets and stuffed animals piled over each other on our dirty vinyl floors. Toys waited for their turn to be played. Toys a two-month-old baby can’t yet grasp.

My mother refused the money we’d given her as thanks for watching our baby. She insisted we save it for him. We’ve spent it all on the baby’s toys.

Money has been a problem lately. All of the opened Amazon tabs on my web browser seemed innocuous until the lockdown. Books and toys arrived on our front steps in numerous bubble mailers and cardboard boxes, followed by “indestructible dog toys” from Chewy.com and “vintage trench coats” from Etsy on rainy days.

Keyword searches helped me pass the hazy hours between the cyclical awakenings of the newborn’s naps. Between moments of wakefulness, I bought my way through the anxiety of being a new parent and scrolled away the crushing existential crisis of a surreal pandemic world.

I succumbed to the magic of credit cards, one-click buy, and capitalism.

My mother told me when people are locked away and stripped down to the bare essentials, they will find what they really need. But not for me. I admit it’s a problem. Maybe it’s always been. The lockdown simply surfaced it.

Suddenly, it seemed like I need everything.