#85: It Ain't No Quiz That Biz Is Fizz (Consumerism)

Oh, You Might Find Your Perfect Fit
Down In Filene's Fashion Pit . . .
That Don't Mean You're Loving It . . .
The Way You Wind Up Clad.
Just Like Me, You Buy And Split,
And Back Out On The Street, You Get
Your First Good Look, And Spit That It . . .
Was Cooler In The Ad.

After the hat, I argued some,
the case for business good,
but whatever we were landing on . . .
some structure of fake wood . . .

broke apart, and Jo and I
fell into a cellar . . .
where throngs of people shopped atop
a light-year-sized propeller.

It must have had a thousand blades . . .
and each one went for miles,
from start to tip, with thousands of
shoppers wearing smiles.

Well, by this time, now veterans of
bizarreness of this tour . . .
without so much as modest shock,
we set out to explore.

We started walking out one blade
'tween endless rows of stores.
Women's clothing hung from all
the windows and the doors.

We turned and chose another blade
that wasn't just for girls,
and there we previewed every style
of shoe from many worlds.

"Hey, Jo-Mima," I addressed my friend,
"do these propellers seem
to be laid out like halls in malls,
where each one has a theme?"

And it turned out that I was right,
'cause later, when we found
the legend for the entire place,
its scope could well astound!

Apparel and garments of every type,
and not just Earthly clothes . . .
styles from every universe got
their own displays and shows.

There was furniture and appliances
china and candlesticks . . .
picture frames, and crocks and glass . . .
guitars, and climbing picks.

There were cars and planes and snowmobiles,
and yachts and toilet bowls . . .
houses, tents and office sweets . . .
flowers and fishing poles.

There was art, and there were paintings.
There were covers for new books.
There were forms for forms and minute things
to hang on minute hooks.

There were tapestries and tap-dance shoes,
and songs for dancing bears.
There were new designs for circles . . .
and some were even squares.

The stuff went on forever, and
at some point on a blade,
a sample could be found of one
of everything that's made.

But the thing that really got us was
the people that we saw,
pushing and shoving each other in
a sort of shoppers' brawl.

Their intensity surprised us, but
'twas stranger still, we thought,
that near as we could make it out,
the stuff was never bought.

And about that time, the sky turned bright.
We saw the sun intrude,
and the indoor mall florescence was
thereupon subdued.

And, of course, that's when we saw the shaft,
a thousand miles away . . .
it was wider than a mountain, and
of solid gold, I'd say.

It was Jo that sometime later, thought
it wasn't day for night.
The sun had not come up, but we
rotated to the right.

We spent some time there pondering
the evidence all about . . .
but all it's scope and grandeur seemed
too much to figure out.

"Well, first we find a Commerce Sign
of warnings and harsh rules,"
Jo-Mima started in to use
his analyzing tools.

"And then weak points in the logic broke,
and we wound up down here,
watching worlds of people shop
without the first cashier."

Well, lots of times, of course, we found
the password for a State
beyond our grasp, had not the Voice
seen to capitulate.

We'd otherwise, be likely stuck
way back at journey's start . . .
but this might be a time that we
found that message heart.

We started checking out parts of
the shoe blade's biggest store,
watching people pick through stuff
they ultimately ignore.

And Jo was the first to notice that
each shoe they laid back down
was inspected by an employee
connected to the ground . . .

with a hose attached about his waist,
and passing through the floor,
where energy discharges seemed
to light the entire store.

A moment passed, and from a shoot
that fed one counter's end,
a brand new style of shoe came forth . . .
and shoppers would descend.

And the whole process seemed fluid.
A shopper would not buy . . .
which energized the entire place
to give another try.

And later, we discovered that
each shop on every blade
connected all employees to
this energy brigade.

And the employees and owners may
have all been like robots,
but it seemed, on breaks, they too became
non-buying propeller-nauts.

We never saw it, but later learned,
the transferred energy
ran beneath the stores, back to
the gold shaft's perigee.

And so, correctly, we surmised
the spark of sales unmade
was the energy that turned the fan
that held a thousand blades.

"What we're seeing happen here,"
I thought out loud to Jo,
"is not the State of commerce, or,
we'd see some money flow.

You've got this Sign of warnings that's
above a fan, hot-wound
by people only looking for
some coolness never found."

"And so, that means," Jo-Mima said,
"whatever business is,
it's made up less by sizzling sales
than by the market's fizz."

And then, as if we were beamed up,
exactly like Star Trek,
we found ourselves again upon
the upper business deck.

"I know that you got something right,"
I looked at Jo and said.
He laughed when he responded it
was not just top-of-head.

We saw the Buggy sitting there,
warm, but not turned on . . .
but Jo-Mima wasn't finished with
conclusions he had drawn.

"The thing I think we witnessed in
that product lyceum,
is currency ain't what's driving things . . .
that's just the medium.

At first I thought it might be greed,
the way those people were
picking through those items like
there's so much they prefer.

But later on, the notion struck,
it ain't about what's bought.
It's creating things that's driving biz . . .
all based on what is sought.

So we watched the stores get energized,
and thereby juice the blade,
based upon NOT things they sold,
but stuff they wanted made."

And with every word Jo uttered then,
the Buggy revved some more,
and though it seemed quite ready to fly,
we couldn't unlock the door.

And about then Jo concluded, "It . . .
ain't what we put cash in . . .
the whole damn place is driven by
nothing more than fashion."

And, BOOM! That door popped up so fast,
it almost knocked me down.
Jo was lucky to grab his seat
before we left the ground.

And so, I guess you'd have to say,
Jo-Mima set us free
of a State I thought we'd never learn
the inner mystery.

And no, the Voice was silent through
our whole propeller stay . . .
but that was not the last time we
would need it's help that day!