Red things

Did I tell you about the red things? It really is getting past ridiculous now.

The first red thing was a red bag. I bought it at a bag shop in Pitt Street Mall in Sydney. I had been volunteering at the Art Gallery of NSW in the morning, and received a call from JB, saying he was planning to take the ferry to Watson's Bay, and did I want to join him for a Dialectic? Since I many times noted that my fondest desire was to spend my whole life and on into eternity in a dialectic with JB, I accepted his invitation. But I was dressed all wrong. I had just enough time to duck into the city and buy some new stuff.

In the end what I bought was hardly more appropriate than what I had on in the first place, but they are still some of my most treasured things. I bought a skirt in a lovely purply grey oriental design with little fans, and I bought a bag big enough to hold my other bag and the long black trousers I'd had on previously. This bag is a red, rectangular bag with fake alligator skin pattern covering. It's a laptop bag, really, including an insert to protect the laptop, which I had to stuff with things and cram in around the other purse and the trousers. But, having been carrying a black rectangular bag that was actually technically a man's laptop bag for some months, I realized very quickly that this red laptop bag was like catnip to women. They would stop, they would gasp, they would say, "I love that bag!". Everywhere. Reliably. People I'd known for years, people who were complete strangers passing by. It was every woman's dream bag. It was big, it was rectangular, it had an alligator skin pattern, it was red.

The next red thing I think was my car. I had to buy a new car when I moved here, and I decided on the sensible option - reasonable price, good mileage, trusted brand, average. So, I decided to get the red one. At least.

Then the couch, I think, was next. I found the reclining chair first, one-of-a-kind, floor model, super-sale, discontinued, act now, and it had a bold geometric pattern of beige and red. So I got a beige chair, and a red couch.

On that same weekend, I know because my sister was visiting and helping me furnish my new flat, I went to Target to spend the gift certificate she had most thoughtfully got me for Christmas (Target's logo is very red, and the envelope it was in was white and red), and picked out a microwave and a tea kettle. The red ones. Metallic red, otherwise very similar to the usual white or chrome ones, but I arranged them in the kitchen on the counters either side of the stove and they looked fabulous. Truly.

Then the bedspread, and by this time it was getting ridiculous, and people were even commenting, "Oh, red, that's hardly your favorite color, ha ha", like it was my favorite color, but it's not at all, it had just been coming into my life at every corner.

About this time my sister mentioned to me the role that red plays in the film Stranger Than Fiction. Will Farell plays a boring, uptight, beige and white, buttoned-down, boring accountant who has not discovered passion or love or sex in his life. And whenever he starts to discover any of these things, there's red. They even chose a location in a building beside the only red skyscraper in Chicago to film in, especially so the red building could show outside the windows of the office - I've seen this red building from the second-to-top floor bar of the John Hancock building, which you must visit if you're in Chicago, best view in the city and it only costs the price of a drink to see it, less if you just duck into the ladies' room and look out those windows before heading back down the elevator all those many floors. Don't miss it. But look for the red building.

I needed to get a guest bedspread, and went to Bed Bath and Beyond and had in my mind exactly what I wanted. Dark blue, satin, shiny, with a panel down the center of a gold oriental fabric. Something elegant, navy blue, and oriental for my guest room. Was there such a bedspread? Nothing even remotely close. No navy blue anything in the whole store. I found a few other that might kind of do, that might kind of be alright. But were they in Queen size? Of course not. What was the one, only bedspread in the whole giant store that was even remotely attractive and okay and would do? The, yes you guessed it, red one. Shiny, deep, bold red, with a small strip pattern on one side and a bold strip pattern on the other.

I got the red towels at Target later just because I was tired of fighting. My own bathroom was done in grey, black and white, and my sister talked about how I could change to many colors, change seasonally, could do orange, could do teal, anything. But I got the red ones. And then went back and got a whole bunch more red ones for my guest bathroom, so all the towels match and are the same vintage, and I can just rotate them all out and around. All red, washcloths and hand towels too. Fuck it. What else would I buy?

Then it calmed down a bit. I didn't acquire anything, wasn't that aware of the overpowering redness of my home and belongings. The feng shui power of my red bed and red lamp beside it didn't bring me the powerful sexio-romantic adventure that I was believing it would. I thought maybe I was a bit sick of red. Maybe navy would have been a better option after all.

But tonight. I went to Office Depot, where I, months ago, had scouted out some filing cabinets which are the last bits of furniture I need to buy, the last things that will make me box-free. I picked out the middle color, the nice, medium brown ones. Took the slip to the front desk. I'm after four of these. Oh, dear, they didn't have four all in one warehouse. They have two? They have three? Hm, I'll have to get someone else to help you. I was sent to the back, to the furniture department, to talk to a very nice man who typed in all my details and helped me arrange the order. The didn't have four in one warehouse. Well, what if we change the color? What if we maybe tried this color? "Med Cherry" it was called on the slip. Guess what color that is?

"There are ten of them! And five in Green Bay. Do you just want to go with four of those?"

I didn't pick it out, but I need filing cabinets, I had a 15% off coupon good only for this week, I went to the shop, I chose what was easiest and most efficient to order and could be delivered and assembled all in one day, and what colour was it? Red, red, red, red.