advantages of mutual respect and fair play

Okay… it was a bit crazy today.  Perhaps frantic.  Frantic is good… let me explain.

 I hate to shop, I’m using the word hate here… about shopping, I hate shopping.  hate it.  I want to do my business and leave.  get my shit and get… don’t doddle, don’t browse, don’t want a free taste of something, don’t want to know about falling interest rates or the “buyers” market here in Florida.  don’t want cookies, don’t want my car washed, don’t wanna donate to your cause… don’t wanna shop! but I’m here… let me get on with it.

 Usually I know exactly what I want.  If I go to the grocery store… I have a list.  If I go to Best Buy… I’m there for  particular item,  If I’m buying a CAR… I know what I want.  don’t wanna shop, don’t care what’s on sale… don’t care about new releases… don’t wanna hear about miles per gallon or customer satisfaction.  Don’t make me shop!  I am here to BUY.

Today I was looking for an item from out of the blue… didn’t get much time to think about it…  just reacted, got impulsive… went “shopping.”  I was looking for a poster, a reprint of art… recommended by someone.  I wanted to have this art for my own, I wanted to look at it everyday and be consumed by it… me, “the consumer” being consumed by art.  I wanted to have that part of me that linked to this other person deepened with the possession of this piece of mutual admiration.  Did I mention I hate to shop?

So I went to one store, an artsy store… with crafts and knick knacks, frames and reprints… artsy stuff!  cool, I was own my way.  I asked a woman about art reprints, she pointed to a rack, I commenced “thumbing” through.  Marilyn Monroe,  Cassius Clay knocks out Sonny Liston… lots of art here, retro posters from a century ago, flowers, vases… flowers in vases.  No luck, no good… flipped them all.  Went back to the woman.  “Do they categorize these in any particular order?”  No, they ship stuff out, we stock it.  No catalog, no reference point… just blind thumbing.

Another store, close at hand… nothing.  Another store, further on… nothing, they recommend first store I visited.  What is this, a conspiracy?  I leave third store and head to a different part of town, the largest arts and crafts store in the area.  I walk in and ask the nice lady, “Art reproductions?”  She points to one side of the side of the store, “All along that wall.”  And she was right!  Racks of art work, framed, unframed and reproduction prints.  Utopia! Now I just have to find the piece I am caught up with, the art that I long to behold… that which has been shown to me and has sent me “shopping” because of the bond we share.

 First rack, nothing.  1920′s, Chicago World’s Fair, Coca Cola, more Marilyn Monroe… Jack and Jackie at Camelot, the 3 Stooges,  Michael Jordan  (Michael Jordan?) more flowers…

Next rack, nothing. Da Vinci reprints, man with golf club during Empire State Building construction, King Kong… this is futile.  Other people mill about, looking and taking their time… “shopping.”  I want my item, I want to get it and leave.  I don’t want to delay, please move aside.  I’m certain what I’m looking for is where you are.  They move, I search… nothing.

All around the racks I search, just as I am coming to the end of the last row… a couple of “shoppers.”  They congregate at the end, the last two sections of reproductive art.  They look at Marilyn, “She was so beautiful.”  He looks at it and nods.  She pulls out flowers.  “Where would we put this?”  He shrugs, she puts it back.  I’m done, I’m up to that part of the store and if what I’m looking for is not there, I’m done.  I stand close, they are thumbing… I look busy, I look over their shoulder, I sigh, I stand… I KNOW what I am looking for is in THAT section on THAT rack.  She pauses and pulls out… and this is poetic,  Edvard Munch’s…  Scream.  “What about this?”  He looks at it, he is contemplating… like he is at some friggin’ multi-million dollar auction and about to put a bid on a Van Gogh. 

I want to scream, “No! you don’t want that you stupid shits! move out of the way!”  But I am patient, I wait.  I look at other things.  wire baskets, weaved frames, flowers, vases… flowers in vases.  He decides no, they return it.  They edge over just enough and I pounce.  They look at me like I’m a crazy man, but I’m on a mission… I’m focused.  I know it is here and I’ll find it.  Next to the last rack, nothing.  Last rack, slower this time… looking at each one; Marilyn, ten car garage, palm trees (in Florida? who would’ve thunk it?) Coca Cola, World’s Fair… it’s not here.  It’s not here.  I shopped.  I did the work… I waited, I was calm… it was nowhere to be found.

I walk to my car,  The Kiss by Gustav Klimt, that’s what I want… the art I want to share, the scene I want to gaze upon and wrap myself up in the blissful notion that there is my own true love out there and looking on simultaneously as we touch each others souls.  I am dejected… defeated.  I hate to shop. 

I know why now, what I want is never there.  I wasn’t shopping before, and I found what I wasn’t looking for… the girl in that portrait, Klimt’s “The Kiss.”  and there is irony here…

I found my copy online.

peace. 

This entry was posted on October 21, 2007 at 11:40 pm and is filed under advantages of mutual respect and fair play, humor, life, musings, peace, rants, soap box, truth, Uncategorized, undercurrent with my big toe, understanding, what is a category and why do we care?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.