a Full Report

What if you told what really happened in the course of your day? That you put on two different shoes at first or that you let the water in the sink almost run over onto the floor while you wandered off to make the coffee? How about the fact that you fell dead asleep while writing a check - while writing a check! or that you felt ridiculously good about getting your car so very close to the curb this time– 'til you came back from your brisk trot to the Post Office to discover you’d left the whole back yawning open like Pac Man’s jaws.I've done all these things in the last day but I don't tell them all. Any account of a day is always a distillation, a thing carefully “crafted” so as not to bore the listeners. It's a report that has been “curated” as they say in fancy circles, as if a day should be like an exhibit in a museum and who knows maybe it should.What I did with some of my day yesterday was to take two guys to a vintage clothing store in search of costumes for an upcoming 80s party. One made do with a comically thick gold chain to be worn with a shiny track suit and a pair of Adidas, while the other scored a silk shirt, a fedora and a full length green leather coat to make Oscar Wilde himself weep - all for under $30.But it seemed to me his outfit ensemble cried out for some really good pants, so we shot over to Macy’s where every day is sale day and there he found a pair that draped beautifully, with pleats at the waist even.We joked around a while with the sales clerk who, as we were winding up our transaction, said “Are you three by any chance the youngest children in your families?”Turns out we were, all three of us, and so was she. How did she sense that particular odd commonality?We said goodbye to her then and walked fast past this store and this store and this store the way we all do at the mall, sharks who swim without ceasing, just for the joy in it; for the steady dose of oxygen, that hard-cider element that makes all our blood sing.