"Scenes of Wretched Excess: Take 1"

The past few days in New York have amounted to insane sensory overload, to say the least. When you've spent most of the past 3 years living in developing countries, and then your re-entry is into cities like New York and DC, you can't help noticing just how much of everything there is.

And the weirdest thing is, stuff you used to take for granted starts to look really excessive and over the top bourgeois. I'm labeling the next few quick posts "Scenes of Wretched Excess" not because I really think that about them, but because when you've experienced so much lack, and deprivation, and desperate need for basic stuff, you begin to wonder if a 10 year old kid really needs to spend a morning at the gargantuan Apple Store on Broadway and 64th Street learning how to use his new Garage Band software??

This is the scene I witnessed the other day. I'd been pondering trying to increase the memory on my Macbook, but after peeking into the massive cavern that was only the entrance lobby before the huge store one floor down, I almost faltered. Still, I steeled my nerves and headed down the escalator, where about 7 bajillion people were wandering the aisles or peering at sleek laptops placed conveniently on every available surface.

The two boys in this picture were having the time of their life playing around with their music software, but I couldn't help thinking that their laptops at home were probably top of the line, and loaded with way more memory than my basic starter unit. And once this lesson was over, their parents probably let them pick up a few more goodies on their way out of the store. Meanwhile, I got so overwhelmed by the vast range of electronic and technological doo-hickeys that I eventually just asked someone for the 1800 My APPLE number and fled.

To the nearby Bed, Bath and Beyond store, locale of the next Scene of Wretched Excess....