An Old Post, Reposted

I wrote this over a year ago, but in honor of NaBloPoMo, I'm posting it again:

The End of Secret Thoughts, The Beginning of a Nagging Concern

Yesterday, I heard an NPR story which filled me with a consuming despair.

It was a piece reviewing the value of what President Bush likes to call “an ownership society.” Just to be even-handed, the coverage began by interviewing a libertarian gentleman from the Cato Institute (again, spelling?)

To hear Johnny Libertarian tell it, this ownership society is a sweet deal. People get to own their retirement funds, their health care, their schools, you name it, instead of having to trust the government to line up these benefits for them. This is a good thing, because the government could take away those things at any time. Which on the most literal level is true, I suppose.

Later on, they had a communist or some such “alternative” perspective speak to the downsides of privatizing Social Security, and having provided two opinions about the same topic, the piece ended. Even though, bizarrely, no one had addressed the issue of lemon yellow handbags.

I have wanted a lemon yellow handbag for some time now. It started as an itch last summer and has steadily grown until I am nearly preoccupied with the need for a lemon yellow handbag. Not taxi yellow, not butter yellow, but lemon yellow.

I know, genius right? Lemon yellow is by far the most cheerful of the various yelline hues, but also? Very hard to wear--makes you look jaundiced. So the perfect solution would be a handbag, which could be held, yes, in the hand, or thrown over the shoulder, adding a nice hit of bright color.

You cannot buy a lemon yellow handbag for love or money. I know, I’ve looked. No such thing exists. Kate Spade shows signs of possibly doing a lemon yellow bag for summer, but that’s still months away. I’ve been on the hunt for a year and no dice. Not on Ebay, not in department stores, not in chic boutiques, not anywhere.

A lot of the things Libertarian Man thinks we should own are lemon yellow handbags. Good schools that don’t cost $30,000 a year in tuition? Affordable health insurance that covers the actual health problems you need insurance to pay for? Low-cost, reliable retirement account management? Nobody is selling these things. No one in corporate America has any interest in selling these things. I would LOVE to own these things, but they’re not for sale. They can’t be found. They are lemon yellow handbags.

I don't blame NPR for not pointing this out. I blame the Left. You can't interview someone about the lemon yellow handbag issue if no one is talking about it. The Left is dropping the ball on the lemon yellow handbag issue and it pisses me off.

The End of Nagging Concern, The Beginning of Secret Wants

Now that I think of it, I've wanted a lot of things that couldn't be found. What is it with me? Am I a lady Karl Lagerfeld? Am I the Diana Vreeland of the Midwest? Why do I want things I cannot have, that no one makes? Maybe I am unclear on the concept of shopping. I have also wanted, at various points:

* A Palm Pilot with a thumb keyboard, wifi and stereo headphone jack. Had to settle for two out of three.

* Round-toe, knee-high black leather boots with no more than a two inch heel. Impossible, can’t be found.

* Macaroni au gratin, made with gruyere, parmesan and bacon. Can only be found at Balthazar’s in NYC. I don’t live in NYC, so this is of no help to me. My solution was to make my own, but that’s no help when you need to buy some lunch and you’re miles away from you own house.

* A storefront Krispy Kreme within 5 minutes’ walk of either my home or work neighborhood. Again, no such thing. In my part of the world, Krispy Kremes are drive-up, drive-thru, drive-past. Walking doesn’t enter into it. The nearest one is a 40 minute car ride. What the hell is that? I’m going to drive 40 minutes to eat a chunk of flour fried in lard? Nice business plan, jerks.

* A wheat cracker with real cheese dusted on top. This used to exist, in the form of Keebler’s White Cheddar Cheese Wheatables. Maybe the perfect writing snack, I ate them by the box for years. They was discontinued in the mid-90s, plunging me into a creative block that lasted the rest of the century.

* An underwire bra with a cup that’s lined enough to prevent headlights, but not actually padded.

* A wrinkle-free white dress shirt with a flattering fit, made out of decent cloth. This existed, briefly, at Brooks Brothers, but they’ve changed the fabric they use, so now the shirts feel like they fell off a Lane Bryant delivery van.

* More Jane Austen books. You know, some people churn out two, three dozen books in a career. Not our Jane. When I kick off, she and I are going to have some words. Unless the afterlife is less St. Peter-and-choirs-angels and more becoming-one-with-the-universe-by-slowly decomposing-and-becoming-one-with-some-dirt-and-maggots. In which case, I guess I’ll have to let it go.

November 2006 Postscript: The following summer, J. Crew carried bright yellow tote bags, and I bought one. Last spring, a nice sales person at Nordstrom introduced me to Le Mystere's Dream Tisha bra. And at the end of this month, Verizon will let me buy a Treo 700p for the same price as a new customer. So that's 3 down, 6 to go, if you don't count the long term fix for public education or health insurance.