FORGIVE me for sounding a little cranky, but I have not bought an 'it' bag in six months and the strain is starting to show. So don't tell me that it's been one year since the global financial markets crashed. I've just suffered a fresh tragedy of my own.

After months of patiently telling me that she would keep my coveted one-of-its-kind bag for as long as I needed to make up my mind, I found out the sales assistant at my favourite luxury store had secretly sold it. Hence the shocked look on her face when I stormed into the boutique yesterday morning and shrieked: 'You lie!'

'Well, I didn't think you were seriously going to buy it,' she stubbornly defended herself as I advanced towards her with a pair of stilettos I swiped from the nearest display shelf.

'I was waiting for the economy to turn around!' I shouted.

'You were stalling till our end-of-season sale!' she yelled back.

I was stunned.

'That's not true,' I whispered. 'I'm not that cheap.'

'Yes, you are!' She was in a frenzy. 'You all are - all you vultures taking advantage of the recession, making us drop our prices, refusing to walk into a store without a 'sale' sign in front. Well, guess what? The lady who bought your bag? She paid retail! The economy's turning around, sister!'

'No, no, no! You're just trying to talk up the economy to boost your own bag sale quota! The recovery isn't certain - we could have a double-dip recession next year, don't you know?'

'I hate that expression 'double-dip' being used to describe the economy. Didn't Jerry Seinfeld teach the world that double-dipping is what you don't do with chips and dip? Look around you. Can't you see? People are spending on expensive dinners again. Ion Orchard is the new temple of luxury - everybody's flocking there and thinking nothing of paying $15.50 for a salted caramel swiss roll! Look at the property market! It's hot! It's so hot I just made $50,000 reselling a mid-priced condo!'

'IAS! IAS (interest absorption scheme)!' I shouted, holding up my arms in a makeshift cross just in case. 'You're crazy! You're going back to the same old behaviour as before the crisis! You haven't learned anything from the crash! What happened to re-evaluating your values? Tempering your expectations? Not buying anything that remotely says 'complicated financial instruments'?'

For a moment, the sales assistant's eyes seemed to glaze over as if she'd just been hit on the side of the head with a stiletto. Oh, I didn't realise my aim was so good.

'You . . . you think we're not out of the woods yet?'

'I don't think so,' I said gently. 'You know what they say. The economy is like a man who has just fallen from a great height and survived. He's not like a ball which is dropped from a great distance and bounces up really high. He still has to tend his injuries, or catch the balloon, or uh . . . '

'What are you talking about? Is it my head or are you, like, really bad at analogies?'

'Forget it,' I said hurriedly. 'I tell you what. I have the perfect solution to make our own individual economic recoveries. Remember that $1.5 million Singapore Sweep jackpot that hasn't been claimed yet?'

'What about it?'

'How good are your printing skills?'

This article was first published in The Business Times