Keeping Up With the Times

Michel Kors designer logo with attached belt.

Yesterday afternoon I braved the throngs at a shopping mall -- there are only two in all of Maine and one is half an hour's drive from my home-- during what has now become the "extended Black Friday weekend." A particular need triggered the rare family outing, but I was more than happy to go since I had a deep longing for one of those buttery, soft pretzels you can only find there. I never got one but still it was quite a trip, and as an added bonus, nobody got shot while we were there.

Besides the overwhelming array of affordable "goods" from Manila, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines, there was a lot of unaffordable stuff from New York designers. One in particular, Michael Kors, has taken the designer logo to the next level, with shoes, watches, belts and handbags adorned with his name in chunky brass letters almost as big as the item itself. (In Yiddish that is known as chutzpah.)

Passing through the cosmetics department of Macy's, a woman wearing six-inch heels, lots of jewelry and what looked like a doctor's white coat imprinted with the word CLINIQUE in bright red letters stopped me and asked if I had 30 minutes to spare for a "total skin makeover at no cost." I replied that what I really needed was a facelift and if she could do that in the same time frame I'd pay full price. She did not laugh and I kept going.

Over at the AT & T store the future was clearly in evidence. There were fully waterproof phones you could wear on your wrist, in case you need to check your email while doing the dishes. There were maxi-tablets and mini-tablets and several sizes in-between, and posters showing a computer you wear on your face like goggles, allowing you to see a movie or search the Internet and get a migraine at the same time. I asked to see that one but was told it's not here yet but would be coming from Samsung, a South Korean multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Seoul. "All the really cool stuff comes from Samsung," he said. Who knew?

Next time I am definitely getting one of those pretzels, one of the few things you can find at a mall without someone's name on it.