Aren't we supposed to learn from our mistakes? Or, as George Santayana said, "when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." In my case, my non-retentive memory seems to be Marc by Marc Jacobs faux fur coats.

Coat number one...it was 2003, and I fell hard for Marc's way-too-cool-for-school collection. The back-combed hair, fifties meets seventies feel, and shocking pink boots grabbed my attention but what held it was the prom-queen-gone-bad white faux fur jacket. I realized, even as I lusted after it, that white fur a) attracts dirt like a magnet in a box of metal filings and b) is not the most slimming fabric in the world...so I gave myself a good talking to and thought of other things. Until, that is, I actually came face to face with the jacket in a store. One minute it was out of my mind...the next...wham...it's a foot away, waving at me. Of course, I tried it on. And, with equal certainty, it came home with me. Since then it's spent a lot of time in the closet. Wearing it makes me too paranoid to go near food, or any beverage that isn't clear...my diet becomes vodka...which is probably what made the prom queen go bad in the first place.

Coat number two...the present...and what I can only describe as the homeless snowbunny jacket. The vaguely ratty color makes me think of the down-on-her-luck older woman who lives in my neighborhood. Every day I see her totter to the store on three inch heels, over dressed and over made up, carrying a worn Louis Vuitton bag. Part of me admires her for the way she faces life...another part finds it depressing as hell. And yet, even as I write this, I know that this latest fur jacket will keep calling to me no matter what negative connotations I attach to it. Why? What is this strange addiction? And is there a 12-step group to get over it?