Don't Touch The Merchandise

"Easy to handle,
Easy to hold,
Once it's broken
Consider it sold."

You've seen a dusty, yellowed, typewritten sign like that in an old antique store, I'm sure, meant to discourage you from picking up delicate china plates or crystal vases. It's a cliché I hesitate to use but then I'm not a conceited, original writer who thinks his writing is better than common phrases. I am digressing... The side-effects of getting older. Oh well...

I look at the room - my study - and find hats. At least a few dozen. Many feathered and glittered ones from New Year's Eve parties long ago. Another one with "Tavern On The Green - New York." Straw hats from Mexico. Hats with cardboard-and-cloth sections that point forward like half a duck's bill - so-called baseball caps. I let my thoughts drift and my mind wander.

Sorry, I used that word again for something that doesn't exist: mind. I apologize. I'm still getting over the effects of letting insecticide into my system. Poison. Breath of the grim reaper. My eyes weep to clear themselves of this gunk.

I was going to talk about ideas but realized that ideas don't exist. I was going to make the same mistake of taking myself seriously. Then I read my thoughts ahead of time and concluded that thoughts don't exist. Somehow, though, we humans keep deluding ourselves, individually and collectively, into believing we exist. I am one clear example of that falsehood and won't stop myself from perpetuating the absence of importance in daily human activities.

Merchandise. Such a cold word. In the parlay of my current part-time job, merchandise refers to students/customers. In my other "job," merchandise refers to something that has a high monetary value, in the right circles, of course.

In either case, keep your hands to yourself.

What a shame.

Have you ever held the bud of a flower to your nose and collapsed into a euphoric pile of human mush? Such flowers exist, some blooming once every few years. Spores have the same effect. Plants and other organisms have evolved defensive mechanisms that most animals usually don't like. However, some animals have adapted their survival techniques so that they practically depend on the plants' toxicity for nourishment. How many of you enjoy the endorphine rush from eating curry or habanero pepper?

I like substances that bring a tear to my eye. One of my favorite food additives is the world's hottest sauce, rated at one million Scoville units. My stomach rumbles at the thought of eating a teaspoon or two of that delicious, deadly, numbing goo full of capsaicin.

For most people, such foodstuff is too hot to handle.

And that's what I'm talking about, merchandise that's too hot to handle.

You know there's always someone who finds such merchandise not hot enough. A person like that wants to eat fire for breakfast and sleep in the lion's den at night, curling up with a cobra on a bed of fire ants. I've had friends like that for whom even a sniff of suburbia gave them a chill of boredom they couldn't stand.

And now I'm there. No, not in the vat of hot stuff, but in the ice bin of slow living, where black pepper and salt are the hottest spices on the table, watching the world go by. If an endorphin rush at lunch or dinner is the only thrill left, make sure to change my adult diapers and wipe the drool off my chin because I'm ready for the old folks' home. You can size my coffin on the ride over to geriatric daycare 'cause I'm ready to slide my other foot into the grave.

I'll be candid with you (and frankly, I rarely tell the truth in this blog because I know certain people read every word I write and look for clues, even when there are none). I'm bored. I've done everything that I set out to do. I never had grand goals. My dreams were small because I didn't have a childhood I felt I had to overcome by overachieving. I wasn't born with blue blood where anything less than running a multi-billion dollar multinational comglomerate is considered failure.

I've always been relatively happy just living with me. It probably started in the crib where all I had to do was smile and the world smiled back. Simple living. But because I'm able to put together complicated sets of thoughts and images, other people believe that my value to them is worth bothering me for. Along with that, I'm a nice guy and accommodate others when they bother me for their attention because I have nothing I want to do. I've said all this before, haven't I? See, it's happened. I've become a hamster on a wheel for you, saying the same thing over and over again.

I started this blog entry because I wanted to talk about a tattooed piece of merchandise I saw last night. Actually, there were a few others, all of them interesting to look at and probably just as interesting to touch and hold, with or without tattoos, sitting in houses or trailer parks and gathering dust. [I'm shaking my head to clear my thoughts. I can't have it all.] Anyway, I like road signs, especially ones that'll lead you down a dark alley or quiet country lane where tourists never travel. And tattoos are road signs, aren't they?

But what's the use of a roadmap if you don't have a means to travel down interesting paths?

I'm a nice guy. Someone has posted a "Do Not Enter" sign on the road I want to take, tacking up a photocopied flyer that says, "According to your agreement with us, you will conduct yourself by following our rules of business ethics and stay out of this territory." Many of my friends see something like that and go right on in, like a salesman who sees a sign in a window that says "No Soliciting" and takes it as an invitation to a quick sale. I don't. I let the owners of that land have their fantasies of integrity and ethics, like people I've met who have annual passes to amusement parks and half-believe in a world of human-sized cartoon characters (at least, I hope they only half-believe).

In other words, I don't get involved when it's too complicated. Some merchandise is not worth handling as long as it sits on a shelf in a store with closed-circuit TV and security guards. That's not the kind of merchandise I'm interested in. I believe in the free exchange of ideas, including tracing my fingers along a roadmap made of nothing but womanly tattoos, far from the prying eyes of corporations or institutes of learning.

I used to throw pity parties for myself all the time but I got bored seeing the same writing over and over again. I'm seeing the same patterns emerge. I'm bored with myself, tired of watching crane flies bounce off the window screen, tired of watching people take walks on the street past my house and look in at this monkey typing on a keyboard, tired of searching my thoughts for morsels to throw at a mostly unknown readership.

I remember two interviews I had when I was a teenager. In the first one, an adult Boy Scout executive was exclaiming about my impeccable record and was glad to offer me a place with a troop in the 1977 National Boy Scout Jamboree. He told me he kept his eye on Boy Scouts like me and looked forward to reading more about my successes in life. Two years later, I interviewed with a U.S. Navy officer who exclaimed about my impeccable record and was going to recommend me for a full Navy ROTC college scholarship. He told me he kept his eye on future Navy officers like me and looked forward to hearing more about my successes in life.

I fooled them all, didn't I? I beat up little kids, stole their lunch money, sold them recreational merchandise, converted them to my gang, lost fights to bigger fish in the organization, re-earned my place in the "family," and survived my teenage years by leading two different lives. Why didn't I carry this fantasy on into my college years? Because I no longer had to. I was free to be me. I had the desire neither to be the perfect Boy Scout who could do no wrong nor the invisible thug that no one could catch or squeal on. In order to survive since then, I've nursed one image or another when the situation demanded it but never one or the other for very long.

I've been standing at a crossroads for almost two years now. I've written myself into a rut just trying to figure out with visible words what I ought to do next and where I ought to go. I've been nudged in one direction or another by friends and colleagues, taking little diversions but always staying within sight of the crossroads. The crossroads have become a home of sorts, where I can sit on a bench and nod my head at the people passing by, never able to ask them what happened after they chose one path over the other. Not for lack of trying, of course! I have read books and interviewed people who've come from paths that resemble ones I can take. But it's not the same thing as taking one of the paths myself. I'm getting bored - I've enjoyed this period of writing but maybe it's time to get up on my feet and travel on.

I learned a long time ago that if you want to be successful and free of dangers in certain businesses, never touch your own merchandise. Keep your hands clean. There are always couriers and delivery people who want to do your bidding. Live a simple life. Be a visible investor in legitimate businesses and let the government have its take of your profit. Share the wealth and let members of society reap the benefit of your success.

All that glitters is not gold. I know that. But I'd sure like to carry this image of a tattooed lady home with me. I can mount it on the wall or it can mount me. I don't care. Does it matter who's the trophy and who's the prizeholder? Not when you get so bored that other people's rules no longer make any sense, even to a reasonably nice guy like me.