Life and Death and Department Stores...Oh My.

Where I work, we often get some....shall we say...interesting... items to sell. While I stood there at the fitting rooms for what seemed like hours....well, it probably was hours, watching people come in and out with armfuls of prospective purchases, I started to think about the English homework I should be doing. I started thinking about some of the concepts brought up in Sexson's lectures and talking about some of them with some of my coworkers. "All that is past possesses our present." We're probably going to be incredibly tired of hearing that after a while, but nevertheless the words keep ringing in my ears. Everywhere I go, I'm confronted by myth. The characters of the ancient tales pervade every aspect of our existence, whether we know it or not.

On the last truck, we got a lot of these tanktops. And all of a sudden, there he was, the smiling face of Cupid, mischievous bringer of love... and all the drama associated with it. I couldn't believe the incredible timing of it all (though I suspect the proximity of Valentine's Day had something to do with it...) =)

Shrugging this off, I turned back to my work and the steady stream of people coming in and out of the fitting rooms. And then I saw a piece of clothing so disturbing... I had no idea what would entice someone to buy it. Here, right before my very eyes was a bright pink barely-there lingerie top with soft pink hearts all over it....and massive skulls playfully dancing over it all. It even came with a matching thong for Christ's sake. I thought to myself, what is the point of it all? Why would anyone want to buy lingerie on which the face of death stares back at you?...or rather...at your boyfriend... Well, someone wanted that effect I suppose, because when I went back to get a photograph for this blog, they were all gone. That's right. We sold out. And then I realized. That piece was just the beginning. Like the warning on a bottle of deadly poison, skulls were everywhere:

on girly yellow bras with pretty pink hearts....

and on fuzzy pink sleeping shorts.....

And then I realized. What if these countless skulls really are warnings? What if they are but premonitions of the dangers held within that most dramatic of relationships, between men and women.... like the idea of the individual's death in marriage or our bodies' eventual marriage with death. Antigone characterizes death as "my tomb, my marriage, my hollow, scraped in dirt, I'm coming home forever". Home. What an odd word she uses. Even the impersonal Chorus says a few words about Antigone, "soon to gain the marriage bed where everyone must sleep".

Still, even with the wider ramifications of the symbols I was witnessing reverberating through my mind, the whole concept seemed all too disturbing. Why do we even think of associating so dark a concept as death with that spring of life, and that basis of love within all of us? Is it because we seek to diminish the power of something we fear most of all by juxtaposing its image with that of the single greatest attribute of our life on earth? Or is it as simple as a warning sign.... the label on a bottle of cyanide we just can't help drinking...down to the last drop.