Pleasantness wasn’t a word he typically associated with shopping. For Ben the whole experience was normally a grueling ordeal. Even in its best light it was nothing more than an occasionally necessary chore.
For a decent block of society it was simply a means to fill empty time, like humming a tune. Benign enough in nature, except for the fact that shopping tended to result in the consumption of vast quantities of money. Valuable commodities in their own respective rights, yet through the phenomenon of shopping, time and money were all too often exchanged in unequal measure for the acquisition of useless objects.
Objects of varying shapes, sizes, and sparkliness, yet all destined for the same eventuality. Soon enough they would all be caked with layers of storage dust to the point of indistinguishability. Just a matter of time. Their degradability never seeming to be on par with their usefulness. So there they stand, guarding countless closets and shelves. Stoic monuments to materialistic indulgences long forgotten, and long devoid of the joy they fleetingly provided once upon a time.
Shopping for such soulless objects was a cheap but costly fix to momentarily assuage the pain and dull monotony of existence. An emotional anesthetic. If happiness couldn’t be achieved through non-material victories between birth and death, it could at least be rented on credit.
On the whole shopping was a distraction from life. And for some the interruption was quite welcome. A merciful break from the howling wind. A way to put work, to-do lists, and all the other stresses of the real world on hold for a bit. Temporarily delaying, but never really avoiding the inevitable confrontation with the monsters patiently lurking around the corner.
For this over-the-counter treatment to achieve the desired effect, the level of satisfaction has to outweigh the hassle required to obtain the reward. The hassle with shopping will always exist in varying degrees. So the overriding factor tipping the scale is simply that some people just have a remarkably low threshold for the lure of shiny objects. House pets with bank accounts easily dazzled by the lure of bulk. The lure of hollow accomplishment. The lure of clutter without purpose.
Aside from the slight gratification that comes from restocking the necessities on occasion, the enticements of shopping had no appeal to Ben. Topping off the essentials was by far the most rewarding aspect of the tiresome process, or the part that at least made the chore somewhat tolerable. Getting the basics. The milk. The meat. The toilet paper. With the essentials there was a primitive reward involved. Something clear and tangible that gave the endeavor meaning. The items were more or less necessary for sustaining existence and would be used accordingly. They would serve their purpose, and then move on or disappear. They would not simply collect dust.
These feelings were not new. Ben grew up equating shopping trips with all the dreaded aspects that visiting a bombed-out and dimly lit Eastern European hovel provided. And the less than scenic joy found in monolithic cookie-cutter warehouses was matched by the challenge of weaving between boorish cart-pushing cows greedily sampling some form of toothpick-impaled goodie or slurping down the latest generic soda, no doubt chemically formulated and enhanced to simulate “realish” lime-like flavor.
But it all had purpose, and provided some small degree of consolation, when it meant braving the crowds to get the necessities. Ben could rest soundly at night knowing the guest bathroom had at least been restocked with tissue, and that his decorative hand-towels weren’t in jeopardy of becoming unnecessarily expensive single-use wipes.
Ben prided himself on his speed when such trips were required. His desire to rapidly return to anything not related to shopping made such outings a competitive scavenger hunt of sorts. He would get the needed items and get out before time expired. Or at the very least disappear before the aisle cattle had the opportunity to turn unruly should the store ever run out of freebie morsels at the sampling troughs.
He hated it all. The cost, the time, the hassle, the lines, the noise, the hordes, the filthy unwashed dregs of humanity all enclosed in the cheap, plastic, glowing facade of readily swappable storefronts. What’s not to dislike? The taking of hard-earned income with an insincere smile and compulsory, “thank you, come again.” Or all the willing masses being too blind or too much in need of a fix to register any sense of awareness.
Ben could do without it all. Without all the hassle, without all the clutter.
Mostly.
There was one glaring exception to Ben’s distain for shopping. It almost served as the antithesis of his whole stance on the materialistic time-suck that such endeavors normally encompassed.
It was the one place where Ben willfully violated his hard-and-fast stand against shopping. Where he would take his time and stroll about. Sample and observe. Buy impulsively. Soak in the atmosphere. People watch, and just let the day drift by.
The place were Ben let the world turn upside down was the Olympia Farmers Market.
He couldn’t explain the paradox with logic. It was still shopping. Similar functions, similar processes, similar factors, and yet somehow everything was different. It was shopping with a degree of pleasantness.
The outdoor market was not very large at all. Unquestioningly dwarfed in size and volume when compared to any number of chain warehouses offering similar goods. The market was even shadowed by its surroundings; taking form just a mile-and-a-half north of the imposing state capitol building, which owned the distinction of being the fourth largest self-supporting masonry dome in the world. A stroll on foot between the two features, large and small, took a leisurely half hour along Capitol Way. It was a trip Ben had often repeated.
Bordered by a spattering of government buildings to the south, the market’s other three sides were bounded by the depths of the Puget Sound. The market and its various vendors setup shop on a stub of land that projected into the waters of the Budd Inlet like an outstretched thumb.
As markets go, it wasn’t nearly as old or as grand and sprawling as Pike Place up in Seattle. But in all fairness to the smaller and sleepier state capital version, Seattle’s famous market was the oldest in the nation and had a good seven decade head start on Olympia.
Ben enjoyed the energy and charm of Seattle’s market, but preferred Olympia’s offering nonetheless. For starters, getting there didn’t require a two-hour drive up north on I-5. That it was mostly unknown and unvisited by the throngs of tourists drawn to the Emerald City didn’t hurt either.
Its major purpose centered on the facilitation of shopping and the exchange of goods. As such it was not dissimilar to any other collection of stores and factory warehouses, at least in terms of function. But somehow it was different for him. Ben couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was just something timeless, simple, and pleasing about the whole affair.