Monday, November 19, 2001

Expo-sition

I spent almost two hours yesterday wandering the aisles of the new Expo Design Center out in Manchester. It's an upscale decorating warehouse, a division of Home Depot. Good gravy! If I thought the Home Depot was tres gay before, the indoor lumberyard has nothing on the Expo Design Center.

First of all, I've never been much of a decorating guy. I apparently didn't get that feature in the Homosexual Genetic Assortment Pak I was assigned at birth. But walking amid some two dozen display bathrooms and kitchens, I found myself giddy at the prospect of a $4,000 subzero freezer. I think the eight-nozzle shower and steambath assembly with coordinating claw tub and marble two-basin lavatory actually gave me an erection. I know I was happy for the 64-page sale circular to hold over my belt buckle.

I had only one impulse greater than the one to open a line of store credit and completely redecorate our house ("Twin convection ovens and a granite-topped island with an under-counter 98-bottle wine refrigerator, you say? Sure. Why not? Put in on the card.").

Shadowing me throughout the store was a young couple shopping for their new home with twin 11-year-old boys in tow. At display after display, the boys cooed appreciatively over brass drawer pulls and fancy bathroom faucets. In the lighting department, one of them actually exclaimed, "That chandelier is divine!"

I managed to supress my desire for a new stainless steel dishwasher or a $5,250 patio set. What was really hard was not rushing out to my car to dig up a P-FLAG brochure for the parents.