You've already decided to take a more no-frills approach to the holidays, you're thinking on the drive through heavy traffic, because you don't know where the economy is heading. Christmas bonuses have been canceled and the outlook for raises in the new year is bleak at best.

You were just notified that health insurance rates are going up another 15 percent in 2003, and gasoline and home heating costs continue to climb every few days.

But that's OK, you conclude; I've always wanted to cut back on the consumerism that's become a trademark for the season. Here's my chance.

Yes, less credit card use, as your thoughts segue to the newspaper stories you've been reading about the Homeland Security legislation and other citizen surveillance measures. You know that records about your credit card purchases are not private, that business and market researchers use them to monitor trends in consumer spending.

But now you've learned that the Pentagon has a Total Information Awareness program. It not only monitors passports, visas, work permits, airline tickets, rental cars, and gun and chemical purchases, but also many other consumer activities it might deem "suspicious."

Damn this traffic. Why am I even out here this weekend?

Maybe I should stop using my credit card altogether, you reflect, then, chuckling, think about how the government would be wasting its time worrying about the kinds of things you buy.

But to think that jerk Poindexter is running the TIA operation at the Pentagon. Wasn't he nailed for lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair when he was Reagan's national security adviser? How do these guys get back into government?

And Homeland Security? What kind of name is that? Sounds like it was stolen from the Nazis. Sure, it may be intended to combat terrorists, but it sounds an awful lot like Orwell and Huxley to me. Look at the "Directorate for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection." Nobody knows how this huge database is really going to be used.

As your car crawls into the huge mall parking lot, you realize finding a place to park is going to be like finding a pacifist at the Pentagon. These drivers are so aggressive. So, as you cruise down the aisles between hundreds of vehicles, you can't escape recalling the court ruling you read about, the one that upheld new Justice Department powers under the Patriot Act.

The federal appeals court said it was OK for the government to use wiretaps, read e-mails and conduct searches of suspected terrorists. The trouble, you're thinking, is that Attorney General John Ashcroft is doing the defining of "suspected terrorist."

Everybody's wired now, with credit cards, the Internet, e-mail. If they want to watch, the apparatus is there.

Ah, yes, there's a space, and you accelerate into a spot just ahead of two other cars. Boy, I hate being like this, you say to yourself. As you lock the car, you notice a group of people dashing out of the mall with empty shopping carts and a large banner. The group is being chased by a couple of mall security guards.

What are these people, shoplifters, you're wondering, as they run up to an old van and start loading the carts and banner. And the guards are telling them not to come back.

Then you see the banner. It has a huge bar code on it with little people figures breaking through the bars as if out of a jail cell. Underneath it says "escape," which is sort of spelled out by the twisted numbers that ordinarily appear on a product bar code. Above the code is printed "Buy Nothing Day: Nov. 29."

So now I have to feel guilty about what little shopping I was planning anyway, you think. Well, let's get this over with quickly. You fight your way through the mall entrance and, finally, you're inside. But you don't get far. Up ahead there seems to be a ruckus and those two security guards are there.

What's this, more protesters, but you don't see any bar codes, just some other kinds of signs. They say things such as, "Santa Hates War, Don't Buy It," and "Going at a Great Price: Peace."

You overhear a protester telling a guard that it's the beginning of the Christmas season, which is supposed to be about caring for your neighbor and peace. "Bombing a country of already-impoverished people was not 'peaceful' or 'caring' last time I checked," she was saying.

The guard explained there were mall rules against solicitation, to which the woman replied, "even if it's for peace?"

But you could see the group was facing the same fate as the "buy nothing" people.

By then, having lost your appetite for shopping — and the mall, you decide to leave. And after such a struggle just to get there.

Cary Brunswick is managing editor at The Daily Star. He can be reached at 441-7217 or by e-mail cary@thedailystar.com.