There’s a reason they call it retail therapy. It feels good.

Feels good in the same way that a 4 AM streetside donair helps to ward off the spins when you’re 23 and drunk and crave greasy, garlicky, mystery meatiness, ten minutes after which you burp, grimace and think to yourself now THAT’S not going to sit well.

No one was ever allowed to eat one of those bad boys inside the car so I’d hang my head and one donair-gripping arm out the window like a dog, dribbling a wind-blown stream of King of Donair juice down the entire broadside of someone’s mother’s sedan.

Then regret, always regret, accompanied by intestinal distress and four straight days of incurable kitten breath.

The retail equivalent of the 4 AM streetside donair can be found at Winners (and its American counterpart TJ Maxx and the like) and other big boxes like Wal-Mart, the ultimate man-behind-the-curtain of the western world, the fat controller with its own gross domestic product and restless proletariat.

$29.99 gets you everything from small appliances with expiry dates to more godforsaken plastic for the kiddies to a Whole New You, and you may as well, because it’s only $29.99, right? And it gives you a rush, the thrill of a successful hunt. Fruitful wandering, meditative value in shuffling through aisles upon aisles of stuff you don’t need, feeling swishy and indulgent, driving away with that rustlingly pleasant sensation of superfluous loot in the trunk of the car.

This is how you end up owning not two but ten of everything: dish sets and teapots and identical jeans and vanilla explosion bath bombs. Material wealth — stuff sucked in and pushed out of our homes in a transient, tidal flow — accessorizes our disposable, replaceable, gizmo-laden life.

Have you ever cut up a credit card? Not from self-censoring but after years of dogged overpayments and scrimping, because it’s finally down to zero? That’s a good feeling that lasts, leaves you feeling free and purposeful and healthy and downright clever.

I don’t want to live on borrowed funds, on money that hasn’t been earned, on credit that stinks like a bad fish for years after purchases have long since gone to goodwill. That’s the good intention. Sometimes followed, sometimes not. But now, at least, I’ve got a second source of Antistuffitude beyond the immediate personal and financial.

The fortitude that lingered after watching this is as close to a new years’ resolution that I’ll get. Take twenty minutes and do it now.

Fuel, inspiration, a match.

Update: it would seem the Story of Stuff site has its own brand of indigestion... not surprising. This viral kick-in-the-butt has likely been swamped with traffic.

Here's an alternative. Not nearly as elegant, but the whole thing is now on YouTube, chapter-by-chapter. Click here to start at the beginning.