The Blender

I love going to “Crate and Barrel” all those shiny pots, leather armchairs and throws. It’s glorious. Its “Martha Stuart” wonderment, made accessible to anyone, with a trifling swipe of a card. The older I get, the more I like Martha Stuart, and the more consideration I give things like “throws”. Even though I am not quite sure what the purpose of a “throw” is exactly, I had a lengthy discussion about them with my friend Jen one day earlier this year as we meandered through Mount Eden Village’s charming boutique gift shops. Within Mount Eden Village’s lush sample of “the goodlife,” as we pawed the picture frames, and slathered body lotion, we decided throws were about as purposeful as pashminas. And like their friend the pashmina, as useful, when a jumper is what is really needed. However pathetic it might seem to have decided this, it in no way negated their inevitable necessity.
When I was a kid, I liked to play house. Recently, in a more practical part of Mount Eden, I helped my Dad shop for a flat screen TV. Dad is someone you always bond with over acquiring stuff. I would call it shopping, if not for the fact that it is somewhat more insidious than shopping when dad’s involved. We were meant to be having a catch up over coffee, but instead were “browsing” at, and as it turns out acquiring, a TV. My little fourteeninch TV. looks modest by comparison and had I not been returning to New York, I may have been tempted to “upgrade it,” though I could never throw it out as it’s precious and was a gift from my mum. For reasons like this, some know me as a hoarder, and the last time I left for overseas a friend helped me throw a shameful ten rubbish bags of stuff out. One mans trash is another mans treasure. They were memories to me, but not important enough to keep.
I also own a blender that I am dearly fond of. It too was a present from mum. It is white with a measuring cup and a clear grey lid that helps prevent berries, yoghurt, and juice from spraying the already stained walls of my small home. Mum always gave too much. She gave whatever she could of herself and even what she could not. All the thoughtful things she’s given me (like blenders) and kind things she’s done endure in my heart well past the words “thanks mum, I love you so much” linger on my tongue. Mum looks after me when I am sick, has spent endless hours running errands, getting treats and packing and unpacking my endless boxes of things. Boxes that contain things, that all demand individual categories in their own right, making grouping them to pack into boxes a daunting task. Mum is a patient respecter of my impractical sentimentality, and its no coincidence that much of the substance of it sits in her garage. The sum of my life, blender included, piled up in messy rows of bulging brown boxes. Some boxes contain items that are as yet unused—like the duvet cover I got on my twentyfirst birthday—that I hope is not discolored by now, kept for when I got married, it sits waiting. Like romantic’s wait for love, or for anything that could gives their uselessness some meaning.
When my new roommate Tina moved in, I (obviously) had to explain about the blender. Not that I assumed that she had never cared for one before, or that she was irresponsible with other people’s property, but I just needed to make sure. I called her to the kitchen for the tutorial where I explained basic safety concerns and features that would insure the life of the product. I walked her through a step by step of how to take apart all the parts, clean them, and reinstall them. I showed Tina all these things, taking care to see that she payed special attention to the sharpness of its blades. I explained that it isn’t good for you to throw harder nuts in the blender as these could possibly damage the blades, but that semifrozen berries are permissible. Part way through showing her how to properly care for its cord, Tina started to seem fidgety, shifting her weight from side to side, as if a little impatient. I am not sure for what she was impatient, but at any rate I cut the tutorial short, which left me feeling a little uneasy, though I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Because of all the moving around I have done of late, I started to compare my blender to other smaller more compact models with ostentatious and arrogant names like “The Juice Tiger,” or the “Magic Bullet,” and apart from their inferiority I realized that there was no point in my purchasing another blender. The thought is ridiculous. That is to say that assuming there could be one better, even then, for the constraints set by airports, I could not take it on the plane with me. It makes me sad when I think of all the resources I have left behind. I feel a little cheated, gypped, circumstances fool.
I have returned to New York now. Beautiful Mount Eden village and “Time Out Bookstore” where I loved to work, along with all my things, are all behind me once again. New York is the same as it was for the most part. People still say “You’re welcome” when I say thank you—which they don’t do at home, and the same people still push and shove me on the subway. I like New York, and am making friends, but something somewhat intangible is always missing. I am lonely, and it’s a different kind of loneliness than you know in your homeland: I feel swept along by the current of people without my feet ever touching the shore. It’s odd to admit, but I actually miss my blender, and my kettle, and the many other things of my life up to now that are wrapped in layers of the sports and business sections of the New Zealand Herald. Crammed rudely into boxes like things that are forgotten they make my mum’s garage look like “Steptoe and Sons.” When I get sad and lonely like this, you might think going into “Crate and Barrel” would cheer me up, but it doesn’t. It makes me worse. On those days I feel a volatile repugnance for “Crate and Barrel,” and all homeware stores. On days like today I notice their large overly lit showrooms whose hanging shiny pots seem now to mock me as I walk quickly past. The truth is I don’t want a “Crate and Barrel” blender. I don’t want your blender. I don’t want anybody else’s stupid new shiny blender. Ever. I want my blender, and it hurts me to think of it.