Friday, April 25, 2003

Five-thousand-thirty dollars into his shopping spree, Mr. Pepero finally conceded that melancholy had won over his madness. His eyes, one blue and the other a curious blaze of yellow, fixed upon the fantastic spectacle of trucks crawling slowly out of the parking lot. Jamming his right hand into the inner pocket of his cashmere sportcoat, he gave his checkbook a reassuring pat. The day, indeed, started out as a slow one and transformed into a productive one. He had simply wanted new undergarments, but he had also wanted to infuse his shopping experience with a little excitement by slumming it at Reffenpfeffer’s Rags, a delightful watering hole for the upwardly mobile.

He was Old Money, or so he thought, and when this Old Money stepped into the store, his tall, gaunt frame recoiled in excitement and his eyes widened in a blue-yellow frenzy. The fixtures of the store! They would add substantively to his collection.

“Fixtures qua Bourgeoisie Clothier of the New Millennium–I should make a mental note of that,” he muttered to himself.

Educated at Oxford and ever mindful of the fortune bequeathed to him by his Italian ancestors, Mr. Pepero gained much in riches, but lost a commensurate amount in sanity. As a god among people, he took it upon himself to scour the world for store fixtures to add to his burgeoning Museum of Modern Decadence. Everyone–the poor, the middle class, the average, the somewhat exceptional–deserved the privilege to enjoy his insightful social commentary. And who on earth, he thought, could possibly miss the delicious melancholy of a building filled with things, yet seemingly not filled with things? It was a twist worthy of his literary studies at Oxford and of past English masters.

“Jonson would have been proud,” he whispered to himself.

It was a chore herding all of the shoppers out the store (it always was), but his checkbook crafted the most persuasive arguments and convinced both manager and customers to leave the store promptly. Then, a quick call on the wireless rallied all of his movers and they promptly stripped the store bare of fixtures, leaving eerie piles of clothes on the floor as they tore through the store.

As the last truck straggled onto the highway, Mr. Pepero pulled his coat tighter around himself to fight off the chill autumn wind. He squinted at the dropping sun and turned a yellow gaze onto his expensive watch, after which he squinted thoughtfully and decided on a place to dine. In a flash of blue, he decided to conclude the day with even more slumming.

“Chez Shanghai it is!” he declared as he walked briskly to his Rolls.