Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 30, 1993                   TAG: 9306300038
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT'S A GOOD THING I HUNG UP BEFORE MY CREDIT CARD STARTED SCREAMING

This is a dangerous business. People like me, who have no willpower and aren't morally strong, risk bankruptcy and poverty when they make calls like that.

It's possible for a person such as your truly here, although intending to buy a pair of demin shorts that costs $26.90, to spend $3,406.29 before he gets off the phone.

L.L. Bean is the only 800 number I ever call to order merchandise, and it is the most dangerous one of them all.

I mean, an 800 number that allows you to order a painted plate with Elvis at the gates of Graceland is no temptation for me.

The same thing goes for painted plates showing Scarlett and Rhett in an embrace; for those indecent things that Suzanne Sommers squeezes between her knees, or knives that can cut through the Atlantic Cable.

The L.L. Bean catalog is different. You open it and you immediately see this pair of shoes for which you have no use at all, but they are on sale for $89.90.

And all of the people who model the clothes in the catalog are so wholesome looking Suzanne Sommers would hang her head in shame and take her knee device somewhere else.

It's obvious that none of the young women in this catalog need a thing like that.

This women are so chaste-looking, even those in bathing suits, that they seem to be saying:

"You're a naughty boy for missing Sunday school, Bennie. I hope you'll come to the ice cream social on the church grounds Wednesday."

The young men, needless to say, are all slim and very healthy looking and seem to dedicated Sunday-school goers.

So, I keep putting off calling the 800 number.

One reason for this is that it gives me time to firm up a little so I can resist ordering the $89.90 shoes. Another reason is that I know I'm going to be embarrassed to tell the person who answers the phone how big my waist is. And when I get embarrassed I get confused, and I might order the shoes and every item on pages 28, 29 and 30 to compensate.

I called, whispered my waist size and was saved from ordering the shoes, a baseball jacket, three button-down shirts and three pairs of cotton pants because there was a brief problem with my credit card number.

I hung up before I went broke.

You won't be able to see me in the $89.90 shoes, but I'm going to be a knockout in my $26.90 denim shorts.