Shopping is the American Sedative

Yesterday was Saturday, the first beautiful day here (Bay Area, California) in some weeks. I went to Valley Fair, for at least a decade the largest upscale shopping center in the metro area. I wanted to go to Macy's furniture store, which is only at larger Macy's stores, and though I loathe Valley Fair for an assortment of reasons, the closest furniture Macy's was here. I need furniture because I sold all of mine when I moved from SC, but now I am finally settled and I want a place to sit besides my bed.

This is about my experience.

In Macy's, downstairs on the way to furniture: A man in his 30's is literally loading up a cart with painted plateware. He has a stack of dinner plates, a stack of bowls, a stack of dessert plates. At the register he tells the cashier, "I'm finishing out our wedding set." It's about two thousand dollars worth of plates. I know exactly two people who have ever had more than 10 guests at one time for dinner, and one of them is me. Seeing this man spending so much money on plates because he and his bride have an "unfinished" set makes me feel uneasy.

In the furniture department: I step off the escalator into mattresses. A boy, perhaps 12 years old, is collapsed with his sister and brother on a mattress set. He is saying, over and over again, "This is eighteen thousand dollars. This is an eighteen thousand dollar set of mattresses. I can not believe mattresses can cost this much. Eighteen thousand dollars!" I look at the tag. He's not kidding - and it's on sale. The regular price is $25,000 for a king set. "Can you believe it?" He asks me. "I hope you're comfortable," I respond. "Oh, I like it a LOT!" he grins. I walk on, trying not to wonder how much he'll spend on a mattress when he grows up.

In the back of the furniture department: A saleslady is on the phone, but her voice carries. "Oh no. How awful - I never expected. How awful! Dear - I don't want you to call me. I just want you to be okay. What a terrible, terrible thing. What are you going to..." My uneasiness increases.

Escape from Macy's, into the mall traffic: The vendors in the aisles have to be extremely aggressive, because there are so many of them. On my return here from the midwestern U.S., I was trapped by vendor after vendor because I did not know how to be rude enough to completely ignore them. If you make eye contact, they will actually grab your hand and start rubbing lotion onto it. Accidentally, I make eye contact with a vendor. "Hello, can I ask you a question?" She says immediately, taking a step forward. I shake my head, break eye contact and walk on. "I just want to ask you a question!" She calls after me angrily. "Can I ask you a question?" This is disturbing too.

Banana Republic: A boy walks in with a girl at the same time I do. They are, to say the least, a striking couple. He is tall, caucasian, pale, with soft features and shoulder-length black hair, wearing all black. He looks unbelievably bored or maybe stoned. She is black, two feet shorter than he and very petite but dressed in a way that puts an unfortunate idea into my head. My head did not want to have that idea. Everything she is wearing is bright pink, including short-short cutoffs and unbelievably high heels. Neither one smiles. Neither one speaks to the other. My sense of uneasiness rises, but I can't define it.

Nordstrom: I forget - do they have furniture or not? I walk by case after case, display after display of earrings - dripping with jewels, reflected in mirror after mirror. Everything sparkles. But I don't like it and I want to leave now. The tables on the way out are stacked, stacked, with cashmere scarves. There are not just one or two in each of seven colors. There are about thirty times seven scarves on display. Table after table on the way out is laden with an unbelievable quantity of one product after another. I feel awful, like I've eaten something bad. I think I was getting close to having some kind of anxiety attack.

Epiphany at SonyStore: There is a huge HDTV screen in the window. It's looping scenes. Box after box opens to reveal pair after pair of gorgeous shoes. Dessert after beautiful dessert appears on the screen. Glass after glass of champagne is filled - a tower, overflowing with champagne. It's a movie, I realize when Kirstin Dunst appears, one I haven't seen: Marie Antoinette. Strangely effeminate men prance in, carrying one exquisite thing after another... box after box of shoes. Dessert after beautiful dessert, consumed one after the other, the images so insistently repetitive that finally they all seem the same. Even the dog is tired of dessert, but eats it anyway.

But Marie Antoinette was beheaded. Did the movie show that? Or what about the Princess de Lamballe, her best friend who was literally slaughtered by the mob, her head and body parts carried on a pike into the streets, when the mob came for Marie?

Who at Sony picked this to show? Someone at the corporate marketing offices, or someone in that particular store? Did they pick it with any sense of irony, of intelligent commentary on the environment in which it was displaying? Marie knocks over a glass after glass of champagne onto a table of cards and I think, "House of cards."

Box after box of shoes... dessert after dessert... glass after glass of champagne...

This was the moment I suddenly was able to put the growing anxiety and uneasiness into words. Valley Fair mall anesthetizes people. It's a sedative. Shopping is a sedative. No one can think in this environment. You're not supposed to think, either. Just buy.

I walked by Juicy Couture on my way out of the mall.

Juicy Couture: "Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy. Eat Candy..."