Conspicuous consumption

So for a variety of excellent reasons we're not letting on to people here about how much I'm making at my job. When the F-word pointed out the non-disclosure would be necessary I admit shrugging a little, because who goes around talking about how much they make anyways? Besides pricks, and while I'm a prick in many ways, that isn't one of the ways. But I've realized that's going to be harder than I thought.

Case in point: I am going to buy this fucking gorgeous sewing machine today. The Bernina Bernette 82e, the nicest mechanical machine I can afford, worth around $400, which is (in my head at least, because not having the brain for math I like to pretend 1 euro = 1 A$, which also stops me from spending too much money) four times as much as I spent on my last sewing machine, which I sold on my way out of Europe for half of what I paid for it.

Fine, right? I'm all excited and happy about it, and quite proud of myself for overcoming my extreme hesitancy to spend any money on myself. I accepted a good fifteen minutes of consumerist pep talk from the F-word - normally even tighter than myself - about how I could afford four of these things if I wanted, how I needed a machine anyways and would have to buy a nice-ish one sooner or later, how I'd proven to myself I was going to use it by using the shit out of that Singer until things went apeshit when M disappeared, how I deserved to reward myself after all the shit I've been through over the last 14 months - and when the F-word starts saying shit like that I believe him because he never says shit like that.

Here's the problem. When I went into the sewing shop yesterday, it was on a tip from someone in the F-word's family about how there was a big sale on Janomes and how I could pick up a basic machine for $100. I couldn't, actually, none in stock, but there was a big sale on Janomes, and I could have picked up a machine for less than half of what I'm going to pay for this one today. Now, we reckon this member of the F-word's family gave us this tip on the basis that she reckons I don't have a lot of money. So when we tell her that I just spent four times what she was expecting me to spend on the new machine, what is she going to think?

I've never had in-laws before, you know, certainly never Italian ones. Less than two weeks in, and I'm already concerned about what she is going to think. For heaven's sake. With the extended family, I think I'll just build an image of myself - since we'll be living in another state, it shouldn't be hard to maintain - as a naive and recreational shopper who has no idea how to handle money. Probably less trouble than the alternative.