Decorating and the Power of Women

One of the more exciting parts of having an apartment of your own (and by own I mean I share it with my sister and pay about 30 % of the rent; take a lucky guess who is the boss) is decorating it. Well, my sister has decorated the living room and kitchen and all common areas. I get to decorate my own room and my bathroom. I am still not sure how to decorate a bathroom, but I do know that any good bathroom needs reading material to make longer visits, especially longer visits after Mexican food, more enjoyable.

I have had Uncle John's Ultimate Bathroom Reader for awhile now. That is a definite. My journey in search of other reading material is where things got interesting. Last week, I had to mail a couple of letters. The post office in Rensselaer is inside the train station, leaving me the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. After I threw a carefully aimed rock, smiting two pigeons resting and probably pooping on a nearby statue*, I went to the newspaper/book/magazine store in the station. Yeah, these stores are in every train station and airport. They always seem to forget to put the sales prices on their items. Don't they know that anyone can just leave the station, rent a car or call a taxi, travel thirty minutes to Barnes and Noble, get the same books on sale, and probably miss his train or flight?

Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue came out a few weeks ago with my favorite tennis player Maria Sharapova one of the prominent models this year. I fully intended to pick that magazine up. What I did not intent was for an attractive woman to be working in the store. She was actually very attractive. My self consciousness kicked in high gear. I walked right past Maria and the other swimsuit models. I had to get something to read, or I would just look weird walking in. I decided to get Maxim, being a little less purient than the Swimsuit Issue. I couldn't get just Maxim or I would look like some dumb meathead to the cute girl working the counter. I also picked up a copy of the New Yorker.

Talk about random. Buying Maxim and the New Yorker. Both, in their own way, write to their audience. Maxim seems to assume that every reader has his brainwaves tuned to beer, boobs, Spike TV, pizza, sports, dumb humor, getting laid, and nothing else. New Yorker thinks its readers think of themselves as being as sophisticated as the New Yorker thinks itself to be. And, all this thought went into making a purchase in front of a pretty woman who probably not only could probably care less about what I was buying, but who I will probably never see again. She did smile at me, though. She may even have been impressed my classy dressing. For all she knew, I am just as likely to be a Wall Street businessman just getting back to Albany from the New York City train as I am to be a middle school teacher.

*there were no pigeons. This is the Rensselaer train station, not Grand Central Station. I made that up. Everything else is true. Kind of like a Dan Brown novel.