Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - You can learna lot from . . .a catalogue?

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Brooks Peterson

Monday, August 6, 2001
You can learna lot from . . .a catalogue?

Catalogues. I get catalogues. You get catalogues. All creatures great and small get catalogues.
   To all those who airily maintain that words-on-paper are destined to go the way of slide rules and outdoor plumbing, I need but invoke the cascade of catalogues that descends on our mailboxes on a daily basis.
   Me, I get a kick out of them. They may be up-scale, they may be down-and-dirty, they may be so esoteric as to be incomprehensible, but there is a common thread that runs through them all: The entrepreneurs behind these things are spell-casters. They don't just sell stuff; they sell the dream. And in so doing, of course, they plant in our hearts and minds the suggestion that turning our backs on the dream would cruelly and irreversibly impoverish our poor little existence(s).
   Think I'm kidding? I got a shoe catalogue from some outfit the other day (should have hung on to it; I fear it has gone to the Old Catalogues' Home). Talk about striking the scales from your eyes: These characters were peddling men's shoes for 400 bucks. On sale. On other hand, they were seriously ugly. Horrifically homely footwear doesn't grow on trees, I guess.
   Far more appealing was a considerably more proletarian offering from Northern Tool & Equipment Co. (Binford Tool operating under a nom de guerre, perhaps?) You want Bad Boys? You want to do some damage? Here's a 20-hp, 4-wheel-drive DIESEL garden tractor for just . . . lessee . . . a mere $5,999.99! Or how about a 13-hp, 3,500-psi 3.5-gallons-per-minute hot pressure washer. (I'm actually semi-knowledgeable on these things: Got one for Father's Day. OK: It's a wimpy little electric-powered thing - but, my, you should have seen the way it peeled the paint right off the old BMW.) (It was an old paint job.)
   Some catalogues are just so funky that they command a place in my heart: Hammacher-Schlemmer, for instance. A couple of issues back they featured a Russian-made clone of a World War II-vintage BMW motorcycle-sidecar rig. I didn't go for it, but I did order a guaranteed survivable windproof umbrella - after having a couple of lesser bumbershoots shredded by C.C. rainstorms a while back.
   Another claimant on my affections is the Vermont Country Store, whose proprietors continue to send out the least pretentious, most studiously un-trendy catalogue in the realm: manual typewriters, wind-up wrist watches, and, if I remember aright, Goo-Goo Clusters.
   Even if I don't order anything from these outfits (I believe, after all, in patronizing our worthy local merchants, and keeping our shopping dollars right here where they can do some good, yessirree), I thoroughly enjoy their sales pitches.
   And sometimes I even learn something about myself. Such as? Such as the fact that . . . well, that I've been a neglectful parent.
   Not of my kids, you understand (that's another story, for another day) - of my cars.
   For having driven home this humbling truth, I must thank the Griot's Garage catalogue (or, as they style it, "Garage Handbook")
   A humbling re-education
   Now, I thought I was being a solid citizen when I went out in the driveway with bucket, sponge and chamois to slosh the filth off our fleet.
   Little did I know. The Griot's people shame me with the Master Car Care Collection, including Speed Shine, Paint Cleaning Clay, Fine Hand Polish, Best Show Wax, and on, and on. I can have the collection, plus a sheepskin wash mitt and chamois, for a mere $174. Of course, if I'm a good parent, I'll spring for the $239 suite, with boar's hair brush and . . . you get the picture.
   I have for years used a brass water-hose nozzle and found it satisfactory. What crass philistinism: Do not our vehicles deserve the Finest Water Hose Nozzle for a modest $76?
   And so it goes, on and on. A Two-Ton Floor Jack from Yurrup ($389). The Ultimate Yellow Wash Bucket ($39.95). . . .
   Is it just a trick of light, or is that a trace of sadness flickering in the headlights of my shamefully neglected mechanical steeds?
   Where's that order form?

   Senior Editorial Writer Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com


Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com

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