A celebration of snobbery

This afternoon I went to Celebration, Florida. It's about half an hour southwest from me, close to I-4, close to Disney. I've been there several times before, to eat at the Columbia Restaurant (terrific Spanish-Cuban food), and to browse the beautiful but expensive stores on Market Street.

Celebration is a planned community, only about 10 years old. The web site says it has "the best ideas from the most successful towns of yesterday and the technology of the new millennium", and "it's a community rich with old-fashioned appeal and an eye on the future." And, "in the spirit of neighborliness, CELEBRATION residents gather at front porches, park benches, recreational areas, and downtown events celebrating a place they call home." Aww. Now isn't that special. Simple times. The good life.

That's what THEY say. I think it's a cross between "Stepford Wives" and an old Andy Hardy movie. All the houses are old-fashioned, traditional southern homes with big front porches, white picket fences, beautifully manicured lawns with flowerbeds carefully tended. Sorry, but everything looks way too perfect and pristine and clean; it just can't be real -- there is something ter-r-r-r-r-ibly wrong here. Call me a cynic, if you will, but it doesn't matter how lovely and quaint the buildings look, the same crap's going on inside those houses as goes on in the houses in Orlando, and Kissimmee, and Winter Garden, and Lakeland, and every other community in the United States. Just because you dress up the outside doesn't mean what's inside is any better than before. It's true of people, and it's true of buildings.

Case in point: Today's excursion was to pick up more yarn at one of Market Street's boutiques, which I shall not name, at least not yet: a typical store geered towards tourists with outrageous prices that for some inexplicable reason carries a nice selection of expensive but luscious yarns in the back. While window-shopping with a friend visiting from out of state a few weeks ago (Kathleen from my previous blog), I bought two balls of beautiful pink-and-black yarn there, which I subsequently decided to use, along with inexpensive Lion Brand black eyelash yarn, to knit an evening wrap with. I estimated that I needed three more balls of the pink-and-black stuff to complete the project, so I stopped in. I even brought the project with me so I could show it to whoever was working; I was so proud of it and thought they might like to see how I was using their yarn.

I walked in, said hello to the woman behind the register, and started walking towards the yarn at the back. She started following me. I practically gushed over how I was knitting something with some of their yarn and I needed more of it. When I couldn't find it, I pulled out the wrap, still on my needles, to show her so she could help me find the yarn. You'd think with me being in there to drop a HUGE chunka change on what really was a small amount of yarn, she would have oo'd and ah'd over it. She didn't even smile, but she did find the yarn. When I said I needed three balls, she asked me if I was sure it was enough. I said yes, that's what I need. Then she tried to get me to buy a black yarn to replace what I was already using, I said no, really, I like what I'm using, it's less expensive than that, and this is already costing me twenty dollars a foot to knit, I already have what I need. I said I would browse for a couple of minutes, but she kept annoying me by asking questions or telling me I really needed to be sure I had enough yarn, blah blah. After maybe a minute of trying to browse without her hovering over me and pestering me, I was livid and thought to myself, that's it I'm just gonna pay for this yarn and get outta here or else I'm gonna blow my stack. Even when I went to the counter and gave her my debit card, she's asking me how many stitches I was using for the wrap! I wanted to say "SHUT UP! IT'S NONE OF YOUR G--D--- BUSINESS."

But wait, that's not even the snobbery part. I entered the store carrying this knitted wrap project in an Office Depot bag. It's what I had handy when I dashed out the door. Not exactly haute couture, but serviceable. When I paid for the yarn, I said, I don't need a bag, I'll just put it in here with the receipt, indicating my Office Depot bag. She said, I can give you a bag, I said, no that's okay, I don't want you to waste it. She pulled out one of their lovely black-and-gold haute couturish paper shopping bags and said, I have one and began handing it to me. I quickly took this to mean, "GAWD, please don't be walking down Market Street with, oh my LORD, an Office Depot PLASTIC bag." I silently rolled my eyes and said, "okay, fine," tossed my bag inside theirs, and with much relief, on her part and mine, left.

In telling this story to my sister and brother-in-law tonight over supper with the kids at Jungle Jim's, we came to the conclusion that the woman was ONLY trying to save me from having the Celebration Police come and arrest me for indecent shopping bag exposure.

Of course they still could have arrested me for violation of Celebration dress code: I was wearing Maine hiking sandals, a six-dollar watch, and a tee-shirt and pants from Wal-mart. :-)