Sunday photo opportunities in the retail sector

On Sunday, we returned to the liquor store, shown in the previous post for Saturday.

On an earlier visit, when we had assembled a particularly large order—they have low key end of line wine sale occasionally—my companion bade the liquor store clerk farewell with a cheery, "See you tomorrow!" This was received with the usual po-faced gravity we have come to expect hereabouts, which meant I had to stifle a guffaw and that in turn caused me to crack up when we had exited the building. At this point, you may be thinking that we have an alcohol problem, which is true: we cannot afford the $1,800 bottle of 1800 Collecion Tequila Reposado & Anejo, or the Remy Martin Louis XIII brandy at $2999.98 for the 0.75 litre size. This is not a price objection—you get two cents change from your three thousand dollars.

The Macallan 25 years old single malt looks like a snip at $629.99. The older versions of The Macallan—most notably the world's most expensive whisky, a $460,000 1.5 litre double-standard size bottle of The Macallan 64 years old in Lalique Cire Perdue—are absent from the shelves. The store offers a wine named Troublemaker in a 19 litre size, but we can get into enough trouble while sober without needing that kind of encouragement.

Forget all that: this was Sunday in Utah, so the store was closed. We had returned to photograph the plaque beside the steel sculputure at the entrance. Our trip was motivated by the need for retail acquisitions, although we did find time for culture and art, both passive and active.

 From the liquor store car park, some cloudscapes were in view. Photo competitions should include a 'Car Park' category.

I included trucks rolling south down Interstate-15 as they seemed in keeping with the location.

Enough with culture & art—let's go shopping!

Squirreled away in the back of my bedroom closet was a long forgotten pair of sandals that had never been worn. "O, dear me, the world is ill-divided" may be truism, but it is one that is too easily forgotten or ignored. The possession of a pair of new and unworn shoes should bring joy and celebration, but it seemed to cause She Who Must be Obeyed to go into a retail feeding frenzy. Through the use of duplicity & intrigue, she inveigled me into a retail shoe store. Then using feminine wiles—"Humor me, honey"—she persuaded me to try on some casual footwear. The dénouement was inevitable.

To my shame, I now own three pairs of new footwear. As far as I remember, this is the first time in my whole life that I have owned three pairs of new shoes at the same time. That makes me feel uncomfortable, knowing that there are people going barefoot or wearing makeshift foot protection created from empty plastic bottles or worn out tires. My position is indefensible in a society where avid consumption is socially mandated and failing to spend may even be seen as unpatriotic, wherever the products might be manufactured.

When I was growing up, my mother refused to buy me plastic shoes, which she perceived as a sign of poverty. Six decades later, in my dotage, I get to wear a pair as a fashion & design lifestyle statement. Who could have guessed that I would become the target of satire, or that a plastic shoe could generate high stakes finance transactions and class action lawsuits? The sandals on your left are branded as 'Gotcha', somewhat spookily in the circumstances. The brand website is one of the most useless I have encountered in a very long time. All products on display are manufactured in China—as if you couldn't have guessed.

We headed for home. Too late for a walk, but we were in time to catch the sunset.

The overhead was too big to take cloudscapes, so I had to make do with the edges.

Some of the overhead did provide pictures.

I did not cheat! I enhanced for clarity of communication: the 'eye' on your left was created in Photoshop.

Gradually the sky turned roseate and the sun went down on another delightful day in paradise.

 

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