Really big meringues! (Not a euphemism or a metaphor or anything. These are just really big meringues.)
Better than Harrods! Or worse. First, such artistry! Or wait. First, so luxurious! Or how tempting, how distracting! They start with the stupendously artful and inviting display windows, all along the front of the building. They continue with the beautifully designed and through-composed departments within. The sweets and biscuits and confections areas! We were all amazed by their Chocolate Library, which displays a huge array of international chocolate products, alphabetically. Ridiculous!
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| You've got to be joking! |
These products, and really everything they have there, are a powerful provocation, and a pretty dire temptation. We recently read about how young models, or show-biz folks, often find themselves in these really exclusive circles. Everything there, and seemingly everyone too, is top-notch, top-of-the-line. Dressed to the nines, fully decked out. No one really talks about it, but the neophytes feel an enormous pressure—conspiracy? hegemony?—to keep up with it all. So you start dressing like them, and eating and drinking like them. The problem is that you are not yet earning like them. In fact, it may be that they are also not earning like them, either. The result, just as soon as late, is a pinch and then straits and then terrible trouble. Bankruptcies have resulted, or suicides even.
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| Don't even ask how much these cost! |
That sure isn’t us, but didn’t we feel like we ought to forego prudence and pioneer thrift, and just jump in? And wasn’t it special? We saw repeated examples of specialization unto comprehensive expertise, and maybe, certainly the devotion that tends to go along with those things. What’s wrong with that? Nothing/that’s how they get you!
