Neanderpundit

We don’t use desk lamps here, not having end tables as such, but we have a couple old torcheres in the living room. They tend to burn out at the same time, and I usually replace them at the same time. So the cycle will probably repeat itself over and over again.

As I’m getting the new bulbs I spot a Walmart sales associate, and ask him where the lamps are, maybe I’ll get another lamp and improve the light.

“Thees way”

I follow him to the aisle I just quitted. “here joo go” he says.

Light fixtures.

“No, I mean lamps. Like floor lamps, desk lamps”

“Jes. lomps. We have many. Choo can see” he does his best imitation of Vanna White, gently caressing the nearest bathroom light fixture with the tips of his fingers.

“No, freestanding lamps. Lamps that you plug in a wall” I indicate a wall outlet on the shelf.
“Like a flatchlite? Reesharejubal? ”

“No, to light a room. To read, or cook, or eat”
“Jess!” he points again, this time to a ceiling fixture, “A lomp for a room!”

Sigh.

So I draw upon my meager collection of Spanish and ask “Donde esta la cosas para la casa?”

he says ‘Ah!’ and directs me to housewares.

There I find they have one torchere, which will not accept a light bigger than 150 watt, and is $70!!!

I have done my best to try not to buy chinese products, I really have. I have no personal animosity for the Chinese, and as a people and as a nation I pray for them that they succeed and that they grow into a democracy. I do not like providing commerce to a nation that has our downfall in mind.

So if I have no choice but to buy Chinese products, I have a rule. Cheapest price, best quality. I’m not going to pay Cabelas to mark up a pair of pants to $140 that I can buy at Walmart for $15. Cabelas does not deserve $125 to sell out our commerce, afaik. I may be wrong on this, anyone who wants to enlighten me do so. It seems that Cabelas could sell Bills’ Khakis and mark them up 10% and do OK.

So the guy at Walmart was trying, and I have to give him that. he had no idea. What kind of house does he live in where all the lights are fixtures?

And now I have to find a cheap 200 watt torcheire. Or three, because these are on their last legs.

As much as I look at the men who wear suspenders and long for the security that having my pants held up like lederhosen brings, I am not ready, just yet, to make that move.

The combination of my disappearing ass and my gravity-prone gut combine to push the belt down in front and not adequately hold it up in back, and if I shrug my hips and suck in my gut I can step out of my jeans like a bloated chippendale’s dancer.

So while I look at old films of Burl Ives and Robin Williams and think, wow, how cool would it be not to have to tuck my shirt in two hundred times a day, I’m damned if I’m gonna go there just yet. It will mean having resigned myself to yet another sign of having grown old, and I still have the littlest urge to resist.