It happened the other night that I saw something that made me wince. I had gone to bed and was lying looking at various websites. It is modern man’s answer to the evening prayer of old, the evening scroll.
I read the latest news, asked the shaggy one if he wanted to go on a track course but only got a snort in response, so I went onto some auction sites. There I admired art, furniture, jewelry and – vintage. That means used clothes. Clothes from before of old fine quality if you prefer NE’s explanation of the word.
No, I didn’t need anything, wouldn’t bid on anything. Looking at old things and clothes has another allure: The imagination kicks into gear. The black and white old decades are beginning to stir in color.
With a vintage garment you can dress for what and who you want. In an old military coat, Anna Karenina’s Vronsky can suddenly appear. In a pair of collared boots, a Master cat darts! And a shy criminal looms in a patina-worn trench coat. Here you can find shoes for big feet, shawls for neat chins, silly hats and ridiculously expensive bags.
I scrolled further but the hour was now late. The shaggy-haired one was in his REM sleep and alternately whimpered, alternately growled.
But quack! Now what was this? I stared at the vintage bag on the Ipad screen. Immediately I remembered that letter I once received from my father. He was abroad, playing a chess tournament and wrote that when he came home I would get a very nice present. I was 13 – 14 years old and full of hope. I pondered sleeplessly.
I wouldn’t have needed that. The present turned out to be a… ostrich bag. A small skin-pale handbag that would have been the perfect prop in a Monty Python sketch. You know, in a scene where one of the Python members, dressed as a falsetto-screaming aunt dreams just such a bag in the root of a man.
Me, who dreamed of the Beatles and Mary Quant fashion and read all about Swinging London. Me – and an ostrich bag. What was dad thinking? I hid the bag at the top of the wardrobe.
But now there was an ostrich bag on one of the auction sites. Not a rootstock model, but a more modern one. But I don’t want any. Do not place a bid. I still have mine, unused. Although maybe? Or no.
Someone is smiling in their heaven.
Read more series by Stä¥hlis, for example about getting scroll cramps in the wallpaper store.
