There’s a pharmacy in my neighborhood that I would describe as either an old-school drug store or a magical font of whatever I happen to need at a given moment. I’m sure I could tempt things by going there looking for something really outlandish, but to date I’ve gone there–sometimes on the same day–looking for compression tights, an international outlet converter, face oil, a specific and uncommon hair dye, a zebra hat, and a computer case, and have found ALL of them.
Recently, I discovered that this pharmacy is now a UPS Delivery Point, which means that if UPS can’t deliver my package because I’m not home and I have no stoop to compensate for a tiny mailbox, I’m not faced with the option of a) letting the package get returned to sender; b) trekking to the UPS facility many trains away from me in Brooklyn. Instead I go to the pharmacy, make my way to the back where there are shelves full of braces and splints for every body part, and show them my UPS notice. They are, generally, more consistent than the local post office.
In contrast, I present the Electronics Store at the Amsterdam airport (I went there looking for a macbook cover…because although I’d found one at my pharmacy in addition to the necessary international outlet converter and compression tights). At the Electronics Store (that was its title), you could buy a MacBook itself, numerous renditions of iPad covers, a vibrator, or A SEGWAY…but not a MacBook cover.
Now I’m thinking about things that we cover in order to protect them–even if that sometimes means covering up the thing we want to see, such that it can never be taken from us even if we never get to enjoy looking at it–and things we cover so that we don’t have to be in contact with them. In column A: tables, couches, MacBooks, hair. In column B: mattresses, toilet lids, cold tile floors. It seems like there probably isn’t any overlap, since the two categories are at direct odds, but if I can ever think of something that fits in both I’ll make a Venn Diagram for it. And by “for it,” I mean in its honor.
