Ever nearer grows that sweet, sweet conclusion called insanity.  My mind swirls and turns, knowing not which way lies the path that can liberate me from the evidential crumbling of common sense and the death of humanity.  With each new achievement, with each new advancement, and with each new gadget, we seem to lose a little more… everything.  Indeed, all those aspects that have propelled our species through our history–a mosaic both beautiful and tumultuous–have seemed to separate themselves into the thriving and the dying.

While greed, ignorance, stupidity, and all their cousins grow fat dining upon the avarice and laziness of the new social order, those characteristics which have made us a miraculous creature (love, ambition, ingenuity, logic) seem to have been exiled into the desert of complacency with only a canteen full of arsenic and a dull pocket knife…

Part One: Window Shopping

Imagine the following scenario.  You are standing in the midway of a shopping mall, facing two different stores.  On your left is Radio Shack.  On your right is Victoria’s Secret.  Through the show window of Radio Shack, you oggle a computer cascading a dazzling display on the widest, most delicious monitor you have ever seen.  You’ve been hooked, and you must learn more about this machine’s features.  So, you walk into Victoria’s Secret and query one of the salesladies about hard drives…

Seems ridiculous, yes?  I think so, too.  Such is why I am always boggled when someone walks into my gallery to ask me about merchandise that is not in my own window, but in the windows of neighboring shops, some three and four doors down from my own.

Part Two: The Death of the English Language

OMG.  Isn’t it so much easier to communicate these days?  TG for texting and instant messaging.  Talking on the phone was such a bother!  LOL.  I just love using my index finger to send messages to my BFF on my cell phone.  OMFG!  I’d be lost in the dark if I only had to rely on vocal communication.  IDK who the MMFIC was that came up with this system, but TY.  ABCDEFG!  w00t!

I’ll admit that text messaging has its uses and advantages.  I use it primarily to contact friends or my wife when they’re at work or some other place that they can’t actually speak on the phone.  And, of course, those initialized phrases (i.e. OMG, BTW, etc.) are part of a new shorthand invented to make texting easier.  These abbreviations belong within the realm of text and/or instant messaging.  However, they have made their way into other forms of communication, including the spoken word.

That’s right!  There are people who actually speak out these initials when they are talking to other people face to face.  What the hell?  Saying “OMG” does not save anyone any time.  ”OMG” has the same number of syllables as “Oh my, God.”  And what kind of sick, twisted, mentally stunted person says “LOL” in an actual conversation?  ”LOL,” in texting shorthand, means “Laughing Out Loud.”  Well, guess what?  If you’re having a real live conversation with a person and that person says something funny, you don’t have to say, “LOL.”  All you have to do is… LAUGH!

Part Three: “Oh, baby! You’re the best!”

My father has proclaimed many times that we, the Savo Auctioneers, do not conduct “feel good appraisals.”  That is, we don’t and won’t claim that an item is worth more than it actually is just because of a person’s sentimental attachment to it, or because we don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.  Political correctness and pandering have no place in the valuation of merchandise, because an appraisal is a legal document that may be scrutinized by the IRS, an insurance company, or the courts.

However, I have come to realize that there may be a need for “feel good appraisals.”  After all, prostitution remains one of the most viable trades in the country, as Governor Spitzer recently reminded us.  If a prostitute is paid to tell a man that he’s the best, why can’t I get paid to tell people that their stuff is the best?

So if anyone is interested, for $300 per hour, I will walk through your home saying, “OMG! That is the best (whatever) I have ever seen!  w00t!”

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