Stuff

In my ongoing quest to amass more material possessions, I have made great strides of late, acquiring a used bike from a guy in Pickerington, a truck cap from a guy in Jersey, a new pair of shoes at a little store near the mall, new glasses from my new optometrist, and a new belt tensioner from Joe's Service in Methodistville. WOO HOO! This is exciting stuff.

Each of these purchases deserves its own unique story, and each narrative of happy economic exchange unfolded in a peculiar, unpredictable way that's beyond my storytelling ability. For a nonshopper like myself, it's a freaking revelation to observe the minute details of seeking and finding just the right item, and I can only begin to sense the adrenaline that must course through the veins of a serious consumer stalking the wild commodity in the great Amerikan marketplace.

There was one day last week when a Vonnegut-esque chronosynclastic infundibulum occurred right on State Street in uptown Methodistville. I had dropped off Hank, my truck, at Joe's Service to have the mechanic fix the annoying whine from the serpentine belt, which had been getting worse for months and I couldn't tolerate anymore, and he diagnosed the problem as a worn-out tensioner just below the nonfunctioning air conditioner. I had put my lovely new dark-green Trek in the back of the truck and rode it the rest of the way to work, already feeling a bit of the materialist magic.

When Joe called me at work and said the truck was ready, I rode le Trek back to the shop, paid the bill, and drove the quiet truck up the street in air-conditioned comfort wearing my brand new German-made, cork-insoled, not-yet-broken-in, Zirkon-encrusted size 45s, feeling like a pretty cool customer let me tell you. To top it all off, due to exquisite timing I had an appointment to pick up my new glasses from my new eye doctor at the corner of Maxtown and State. My new "progressive" lenses were waiting for me, and I picked up a new fake leather case to put them in, just for good measure, dark-green to match the handsome new/used bike.

I'm here today to bear witness to the power of the greatest recreational drug of all, consuming goods in the marketplace. Can I get an amen?