We have a friend, an easily excited young woman, who from time to time likes to develop an abnormally intense interest in the most normal people and things. We have known this young woman for years now, and we have noticed that the intense-interest span is brief. We have here a list of some of the things that have interested her:
Nu Grape soda.
The television commercials for the Hotel Collingwood, on West Thirty-fifth Street.
The television commercials for Lenny’s Clam Bar, a restaurant in Queens.
Fat girls. (She said that she had heard a comedian say to an audience at the Apollo Theatre, in Harlem, “Ever notice how all fat girls think they are fine?” and that the audience, which was about seventy-five per cent fat girls, laughed and laughed.)
Margaritas.
Macadamia nuts.
Ginseng Bee Secretion, a questionable tonic made in Red China.
Circle skirts and saddle shoes.
Tom McGuane novels.
Ordering through the mail unusual household utensils she has seen advertised in women’s magazines (such as a set of little gadgets that are useful only when dealing with lemons).
We got a call from this young woman the other day. She was much excited. She said, “I have just been to Macy’s. I have been going to Macy’s every day for the last two weeks. I am very big on Macy’s. I mean, it’s such a big store. They say it’s the biggest department store in the world. And there are always lots of people there. Ordinary people. I am very big on ordinary people. I got interested in Macy’s when I read somewhere that Queen Salote of the Tonga Islands attended Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 wearing an outfit that came from the tall girls’ shop at Macy’s. And I got interested again when I read somewhere that President Tubman of Liberia had his plumbing furnished and installed by Macy’s. I read that about two weeks ago. Since then, I have bought a bed there, and a peach-colored bed ruffle for it, and peach-colored pillowcases, and peach-colored sheets, and a peach-colored comforter. I love peach. Then I bought bath towels and wineglasses and water goblets and a set of knives for carving and pots and pans and a stereo set and an umbrella and straight-leg corduroy jeans and a leaf-green linen shirt made in France and huge mugs made in Italy and a Poly Hot-Pot
(in avocado green, which is another one of my favorite colors, and which used to be the most popular color in the country) for making tea in my office, and chicken and sheep cheese for a dinner party I was giving, and nightgowns, and then I got one of their credit cards, because I was out of money. But the thing I like most about this particular store is how everything I buy there is something I really need. I am the one person I know who doesn’t have to participate in meatless days, because I am not doing anything, such as over-consuming, to unnecessarily deplete the world’s natural resources.”
We could have asked her to explain that last line of reasoning, but we had never asked this young woman to explain any of her intense interests or the reasons she gave us for them, and we had no intention of starting now.
“Of course,” she went on, “they have things other than what I need, and I know where it all is. I know, for instance, exactly where girls’ T-shirts are kept and where boys’ T-shirts are kept. I know where to find ladies’ undergarments, men’s leisure suits, school clothes for boys, school clothes for girls. I also know that in a single year Macy’s New York uses up sixty-nine hundred miles of poly twine, three thousand miles of gummed tape, nineteen hundred miles of Scotch Tape, eleven thousand miles of packing tissue, twenty-five million paper bags, and five million gift boxes. Also, I know that Mr. Macy was a whaler from Nantucket before he decided to start selling things.”
—May 16, 1977