Duffy uses asyndeton throughout these lines, listing item after item that the character has bought. The poet moves through ‘wedding, a wedding dress, groom, married him,’ even monumental moments like ‘marriage’ just being an excuse to spend. Duffy uses asyndeton to further the chaos of the woman’s life, not giving her time to pause and take in everything she is doing. Consumerism is who she is, Duffy exaggerates the stereotype of the shopaholic woman.
The woman even begins to use her husband’s money, ‘shuffling his plastic with hers’. This relates to credit cards, the wife using both hers and his in order to continue her buying spree. The confusion implied in ‘shuffling’ perhaps suggests that the woman has done this without letting him know. In the following stanzas, the woman’s life begins to fall apart, this being the first moment she steps over the line.