Yesterday afternoon, I stopped by an surplus warehouse/rock shop called Tops at the corner of Kramer and Braker Lanes. What an odd combination of goods that was. The guy working there said one spouse runs the office surplus side and the other runs the precious stones side. This seems like the ideal way for spouses to run a business together.
Anyway, I was scoping out a blue Knoll office chair for possible placement in my living room. The chair still had an inventory tag from IBM on the bottom. Tops wanted $125 for it, which probably isn't a bad price for used Knoll chair in decent shape, but I couldn't commit. I guess I was a little freaked out by the presence of framed wedding and school pictures scattered among the old calculators, desks and dry erase boards.
Just how does a picture of someone's daughter wind up in a dusty box on the floor of an office surplus warehouse? Was this person fired or laid off? Did he or she die? Maybe the person just got sick of things one day and walked out of the office, never looking back. Whatever the case, seeing family photos in such a context never fails to conjure up all sorts of dire scenarios in my mind. It seems highly unlikely that those photos would be there if something bad didn't happen, but who knows?
Sunday, February 06, 2005
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3 comments:
I never fail to be amazed by the depressing crapola one finds in thrift stores, estate sales, etc. I often find love letters, family photos, even grandma's underpants and boxes of Depends...didn't anyone in the family want the letters and photos? Didn't anyone want to spare grandma the humiliation? The answer: Apparently...No.
Now I can add office supply/rock shops to the list of repositories of the sad. Sigh.
On an upnote, I'm amazed to see that Pancho's has a website. Huzzah!
I like to think "found photo" artists like Charles Phoenix (God Bless Americana) and the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players are giving those lost snapshots a new "home" of sorts even as they riff on them. Still, you can't help but feel a little sad about the idea of family photos winding up in thrift stores.
We are fortunate indeed to have the flag-raising goodness of Pancho's Mexican Buffet to drown those doldrums in an endless vat of orange-hued queso.
I like to think "found photo" artists like Charles Phoenix (God Bless Americana) and the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players are giving those lost snapshots a new "home" of sorts even as they riff on them. Still, you can't help but feel a little sad about the idea of family photos winding up in thrift stores.
We are fortunate indeed to have the flag-raising goodness of Pancho's Mexican Buffet to drown those doldrums in an endless vat of orange-hued queso.
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