Le Sequoit

O Brave New World

O, how merrily we skip down the road to damnation.

The Little Hun and I were off yesterday on a rather quixotic attempt to find a dress―one that is perfectly, simply elegant, yet properly understated so as not to distract from the soon-to-be daughter in law on her day of days. And cheap. In a size 2 petite.

This brought us to the Mayfair Mall in Milwaukee, a mid-upper scale mall in "transition". The strangeness of two utterly distinct American cultures going about their Saturday afternoon experience in total ignorance of each other was sadly disappointing, but that's another subject.

And the fact that there is such a thing as size 18 petite is truly puzzling.

Ah, but tucked away on the top level of this coliseum of commercialism there was (is) real evil lurking, salivating as hundreds of parents stood in line with their children. In a cross-generational frenzy of conformity, these sheep thought they were there to pay too much for the latest thing but, even as I was distracted by the male affliction of shopper's back, the suspicious eye attached to the mercurial mind of le sequoit was not fooled for one little moment. No, slithering behind those warm, fuzzy "it was all yellow" gates the devil himself is behind this latest Pied Piper of the futurist nightmare, the Build a Bear Workshop.

How we cringe with fear at signs of our approach to the children factories of Huxley's Brave New World! "Frankensteins," we call those genetic engineers who are making the availability of designer children a reality. Yet I witnessed moms and dads applauding with their Visa cards, as sweet talking instruments of the unholy sat their children down at a console to construct their pals. It's a well-disguised end run, I tell ya! Is it only a matter of time before our children, duly acclimated, will order their own children in the same "fashion", two kiosks down from the Sunglass Hut?

Where are the righteous in the face of this insidious, international plot?

And what of these made to order teddy bears and their keepers? What will be their fate? Will they ever know true love, the kind that at first sight lights up like a carousel with mystery and wonder and imagination? Or will this relationship be signed, sealed and delivered? Inspected?

When the skin is chosen, the heart placed, the stuffing stuffed and the story written, what's left for teddy to contribute?

Besides "fashion" sense?

posted by sequoit @ 11:42 AM