What’s The Worst Thing You Bought Recently?

Food? A movie ticket? Headphones?

A month ago, I realized that I couldn’t find my earbuds; as I was headed to the gym for the first time in months and did not want to listen to the sound of my own labored breathing, they were imperative. I stopped at Duane Reade and bought a $5 pair of headphones from the bins in the checkout aisle. They worked for a week and then broke, so I replaced them with a $10 pair of headphones I bought at Nordstrom Rack one day while killing time on a Saturday. Those lasted for a bit longer but gave up the ghost two days ago. Finally, I relented and did what I should have done in the first place: I bought a $25 pair of earbuds from the computer repair place down the street from me and threw away the bad pair.

Half of my bad purchases — the beauty product or the weird shoes or the gross juice — are born of my own impetuousness and a need for instant gratification. Those last headphones seemed like a good idea, but in actuality, were quite bad.

What’s the worst thing you bought in recent memory? Tickets to Beauty and the Beast? A mandoline that only works half the time? An ill-advised shrimp burrito? Something kicky and fun that you assumed would improve your life but actually made it worse in ways so small that it took you at least two weeks to notice?

For every good thing we buy, there are at least five bad things left in its wake. What’s yours?

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