I drove past this place today that I see a lot and it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to write about it.
So I live in Boston and real estate is pretty expensive here. Commercial real estate can go for a LOT of money per square foot in this area. So why do I keep seeing stores that have a curiously deserted vibe to them? For instance today I passed a store called something like “Good Feet.” And underneath it said “The Arch Support Store.” That’s all.they.sell. Arch supports. This is not a tiny little dusty place either; it’s about the size of a CVS. Fairly big in other words. And all they have is arch supports and I think bunion stretchers or toe straighteners or whatever it is that knobby feet require. Thankfully I have been spared any hereditary or shoe-induced foot problems and so don’t know much about them, except for this one time I had a corn between my pinky and my next toe that caused me no end of grief and on which someone stepped once, hard, and caused me to experience the most horrific pain of my life, like a lightning bolt smashing into my brain. I don’t think anything could compete with that pain and I have had a large rock embedded in my head and had cluster headaches that caused me to seriously consider axeing the top of my head open to make it stop. (It seemed to briefly make sense at the time of the headache.) Nothing compared with the pain of having that corn stepped on. You know in cartoons when they fall off the cliff and see stars upon hitting splat on the ground? That’s more true than you might think possible. Bright shiny swirly stars, which start after a few seconds of a nuclear-bomb-blast of white light that blots all perception of the world from your brain, except for the motherfuckingly astounding pain that has shot up from your foot up the leg through the chest and to your cerebral cortex. That thing hurt me for about 10 years, until it got massively infected and I went to the doctor finally and he had to lance it and well it gets really disgusting here so I will spare you.
Back to these fishy retail establishments. It gets better. This arch-support store is right next door to a ham store. Yes, ham. That’s all they sell. Ham. And not a variety of ham, it’s all ONE kind of ham. One flavor, one variety.
I’ve been driving past these places for years and have never seen a car in either lot, yet they continue on.
Down the street is a small “shopping plaza” with, get this, TWO pool stores (people buy pools in stores?), a wood-stove-pellet store, and best of all, a pool CUE store. Yes a store whose entire purpose is to sell pool cues. Bit specialized, don’t you think? And I can’t figure out where the entrance to this the lot is. It appears to have no access from the main road. ???
These places certainly beat out the Irish store I used to pass by a lot. I had seen that place for years too and so one Sunday I thought I’d go in and see if they had any brown bread, and what should be on the shelves but only a few packets of Hob Nobs and a box of Barry’s. A box discolored by the sun, it had been there so long. I think there were some moldy old jars of Marmite in there too, not sure. I was given “the eye” by the various people “working” inside, far far too many people to possibly fill their timesheet with actual work at such a small store. I think I found a copy of the Irish Voice and then got the hell out. I have no idea what was going on in there. They stayed in business for years too. I think the last time I passed by though it had been replaced by an alternative bookstore, whatever that means. Someone must have bought the Barry’s and Hob Nobs and so they could finally close.
Edit: I never, EVER, used to misspell words, or make typos that I didn’t notice. I don’t know what is wrong with me lately.