I love catalogs.

(This feels like a confessional. Is there a support group for those of us addicted to ordering-by-mail?)

It’s not that I order a lot of stuff, though I have been known to place an order for something not completely unnecessary just because I love receiving stuff in the mail, much to my husband’s (and our pocketbook’s) chagrin. Mostly I like getting the catalogs in the mail. I know you can order all the stuff over the Internet, but where is the fun in that? It’s convenient when I know exactly what I want, but to just browse (which is what catalogs are for, aren’t they?), it’s not as exciting. I once read someone saying that he (of course) loved to get the Victoria’s Secret catalog — it was, for him, kind of like a secret feminine world that he invented stories about. I can relate (well, not to the Victoria’s Secret thing): every time I get a catalog, it’s like opening a whole new shopping world of fantastically overpriced (usually) but wonderful things.

There are four catalogs that if I had all the money in the world, I’d order everything in: Chinaberry (for the books), Lands End (for the clothes, though I think I like Lands End Kids better), Baker’s Catalog (great cooking supplies), and Pottery Barn/Pottery Barn Kids (mostly for decorating ideas). Every time one of them comes, I drop everything else and spend twenty heavenly minutes looking at all the things I can’t order. Then I spend the next day or so obsessing over said items and fighting the urge to just pick up the phone and order something.

I am not the catalog queen, though. The woman who lived in our house before us was. Over the past four months, catalogs that I’ve never heard of have come in the mail. Along with some forgotten ones, too. And that’s reignited my love of catalogs. I haven’t seen Williams Sonoma for a long time, and I’ve missed it. I enjoyed browsing through the Gaiam catalog, and I’ve been amused at the overpriced clothes at Title Nine (along with the “life stories” of “real women”). There have been others: Sundance, some Hawaiian shirt catalog, and a few wine and cooking ones that weren’t especially memorable. I’ve been good, though, and I haven’t ordered anything.

But it made my week when Femail Creations showed up in the mail. I died laughing — this catalog was filled with some hokey, some fun and some incredibly pointless things. Still, I was hooked when I saw this:

The text says: “She is too fond of books, and it has addled her brain.” Louisa May Alcott was supposed to have said it. She may not have. At any rate, I need this. No, really.

I don’t need this, but I really laughed:

And then there’s this:

But not for me. For a friend.

I’d like to place an order, please.