By MARK GILCHRIST
Chief Photographer

There once was a time when extravagance tarnished only the extravagant, and the beautiful life of adequacy was enjoyed by the majority.

Then came catalogs. These flimsy paper-and-ink dream weavers have invaded our homes over the decades and robbed us of our place in the world as the common man. They have gotten their glossy-page tentacles on every common person that they could and made them feel wholly inadequate until they buy their wares.

My mail carrier delivers far too many of these envy-bombs in my box each week, and he will continue until I make some phone calls and cancel them. What Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck started innocent generations ago was like a puppy brought into the home by the children, begging through its cuteness for the family to take it in. The reasoning it gave was all emotion, which easily won over any rationale.

What the catalog did for rural folk all around the country was innocent yet insidious in that it not only showed us how the “other half” lived, but it dared us to live like them.

And then, when it got a hold of us, it dared us not to live like them.

Soon, farmers were riding in gilded carriages and sitting on furniture that had form riding roughshod over function.

Yet, they only wanted more as they sipped the mail-order Kool-aid. There had long been overpriced shops where only the rich and famous bought their wealth and fame, shops from which the rest of us were able to stay safely away.

But with catalogs, and now with cable television commercials and the Internet, that cute puppy has dropped a litter in our living rooms. Here is an example of the temptations I have recently faced:

The most egregious that I have seen is the pompous Hammacher Schlemmer company. The people who write their catalog offend me by referring to every item as “the,” as if I had no choice but to buy just that one.

I might understand “THE YACHTSMAN’S CHRONOGRAPH” (the all-caps style is theirs…) because it just might be the only yachtsman’s chronograph in existence. Well, no, it isn’t, but for $399.95, it just might magically turn me into a real YACHTSMAN.

I won’t pay $34.95 for a bath towel, even if it is “THE 900 GRAM PLUSH COLOR GENUINE TURKISH” towel, or $299.95 for “THE 1,200 THREAD COUNT SHEETS.”

If I did buy those sheets, then I could tell my guests, “My sheets are 1,200 thread count - they cost more than my bed.”

Without catalogs, I would never have seen sheets costing 300 bucks, and if I did, I could say “let’s get out of this crazy store!” But now that store is in my living room and I can’t leave.

There’s more. There’s Russell’s for Men, which will surely make me a man if I buy their “Badger Hair Shaving Brush” for only $79.95 and the rest of their “man’s” bathroom ensemble, including a $36.95 “shoe horn / back scratcher,” for the price that men in some countries pay for their houses.

Some of the favorite sucker-sellers in these catalogs are sunglasses, wristwatches and limited-edition anything.

I’d be hard pressed to find a pair of sunglasses that cost more than $20 to make, yet the market is filled with models selling for hundreds. They charge outrageous prices for these fashion items because they’re selling the sizzle beyond the steak, and we love the sound.

I would have no desire to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a home entertainment system if I didn’t get the Crutchfield catalog, but now I have my eye on that 63-inch plasma HDTV. If I bought that, why, I could set it on its back on a few milk crates and use it as a dining room table.

I’m going to make a few phone calls before my mail carrier strains his back, or better yet, I’m logging onto Catalogchoice.org and let them do all the work.