Okay, I think my pulse literally just accelerated times one hundred million. This purse from Aldo reminds me so much of a Vera Wang bag I’ve been eyeballing, it could be its bag twin! Well, it’s certainly not a knock-off — there’s enough of a difference there to make it an entirely separate bag. But it has the lethal black-and-brown color combination by which I’ve been hypnotized! And it’s . . . well, considerably less than the one I’ve been obsessed with, waiting and waiting and waiting for it to go on sale. Of course, it never does.

I don’t know what it is with the black-and-brown bag. I was taught from the age of, oh, five that there are a few colors that should never — under any circumstances — be matched together. Like navy blue and brown. Yellow and brown. Red and brown. Well, I’m sensing a pattern here . . . brown just isn’t really a great color partner. Sure, it looks great with whites, bright blues and even pink, but black? Negative. Fashion travesty.

Again, I’m certainly no fashionista, but I like to think I have a basic understanding of what will get me shamelessly made fun of by my friend and coworker Brandon. And black and brown together would (normally) do it.

But there’s something about this bag! I love it. I. Love. It. I have to have it. But I also need to really watch what I’m spending right now, what with the unstable economy and all . . . So torn, so torn . . .