I got up bright and early on Friday morning. Except it wasn't bright because the sun hadn't gotten above the mountains yet. But it certainly was early. The sales jingles had been singing in my head. The sound of cash registers... Well, they don't sound like they used to and are mostly silent except for the beep when a product is scanned, but these beeps would soon be as prevalent in my ears as the continually rising music at casinos.

Yes. I was going into the mainstream of American society. I was gonna shop. I was gonna get exactly what my family wanted for Christmas, and I was gonna get it cheap. That's right. I had my list, and I would succeed if it killed me. I felt invincible. If there is anything America is good for, it's having what you want for sale.

First stop was a big electronics store. They don't really call them electronics stores anymore. They are entertainment stores. But then isn't everything entertainment? Everything is supposed to take our minds off of "real" problems, and so it's entertainment.

But I want the war to end. It's first on my list. If things are getting better in Iraq, then we must be winning, and we need to leave. If things are getting worse, then we've really got to get out of there. I went through all the phones on sale. There were lots of different kinds. I could surf the net, watch videos and even get phone calls on them, but there was no "stop the war" button on any of them.

So I went to the TV section. There were some pretty big TVs. Some of them were bigger than my car. Some of them were small enough to put in my car--just in case I needed to watch something other than the road while I was driving. But none of them were able to end the war. It took me a while to check out everything, but there was nothing--not even the stuff not on sale--that would end this war. I had to settle for a live CD by Richie Havens with him singing "Handsome Johnny." And even venerable old Richie couldn't stop the Vietnam war back in the day.

Maybe I'm asking too much for Christmas, I thought as I crossed a couple of parking lots to go to a fancy discount store. This means it's pretty much like Wal-Mart, but it has a different color scheme and white people like shopping there. I thought there might be something at this place that would help me out with my second choice: universal health care. There were lots of over the counter pharmaceuticals, vitamins and hair care products, but there was a lot more junk food, chips, dips, candy, chocolate and soda. And it was this junk that was on sale.

I asked one of the clerks about universal health care, and he thought for a second and then said, "No, we don't have that. Have you tried these Sunlight Chips? They're baked by the sun, so they have a third less grease than regular chips." I declined the offer. I decided I should just buy some band-aids and look elsewhere for universal health care.

Okay, down to my third choice. Find something that helps me fight global warming. I should say that, by now, the sun was up pretty high in the sky, and I was a little dispirited from my fruitless search for Christmas presents. I was feeling like U2 in the late 80s. It didn't seem like I was gonna find what I was looking for. And then I thought, yeah, a more fuel efficient car! So I went to a used car lot, because I don't really have a lot of money to spend on Christmas this year. But the salesman there told me no one sells back their "green" cars. Or maybe they haven't had them long enough to trade up. And then he told me I shouldn't buy a car until after Christmas, because that's when they're cheapest. But it can't be a Christmas present if I don't get it beforehand, right?

So I went to a new car lot, and the salesman grinned wide. "Oh yes!" he cried. Hybrids. That's what I wanted. He showed me a big hulking truck car thing with a hybrid sticker on its butt. The thing was about a third of the size of my house. "Twenty miles per gallon on the highway, this sucker will save you so much gas, you'll get thrown into a higher tax bracket!"

But my current car gets over thirty on the highway, I thought. "Maybe there's something smaller that does better?" I asked. And he frowned a bit, thinking I didn't know what I was asking for. "Well, yeah, I mean there are some. But we don't have them in stock right now. You have to order them straight from the factory, and we're sold out." Then he leaned forward and talked to me from behind his hand, "And those are pussy cars, no power." When I asked how much, he gave me a number that sounded like going to graduate school for six years. When I sighed, he realized I wasn't really a buyer. So he gave me a combination business card/air freshener. It would make my current car smell better.

Dejected, I realized my quest for the perfect Christmas gift would not happen this year. You just can't buy any of these things, even on the day when everything in America is on sale. Which kind of bugs me. I mean, if we can buy the most impossibly useless devices and entertainment and food and vehicles in the world, why can't we buy something that would actually make our country and world better?

I must apologize to my family right now. They're not going to get what they want for Christmas. No one is selling peace, love and a clean environment this year.

Matt Worley is a failed consumer.