Let me take you on a journey… to the Lego Store on Fifth Avenue. It’s the one near the newly disgraced Eataly, which I will definitely still be getting lunch from once a year.
I have arrived at the doors of the Lego Store. I have arrived in every sense. First I push the door when I should have pulled, which is actually step one to getting a job at Legoland. You’ll understand why in a moment. I go in and the employees outnumber the customers. I’d estimate it’s about an 8:6 ratio. And the store is small. I immediately feel like a pervert because all the children’s Legos are at the front/take up most of the store space. You have to really search for the +16 products, the “Advanced Creator” line, in this already too-small store.
There is a store greeter who is beautifully more awkward than I; a vision of social handicap. This is the way to win me over. Give the customer control. So now I’m in the driver’s seat, which is ironic because I’m looking for a Lego car set. Well, not ironic, but totally appropriate. So the greeter greets me: “Welcome!” I say, “Hi” and I could see him think about asking if I needed help, but he hesitated. The window had closed. He knew it. I knew it.
I have now been in the Lego Store for about forty seconds, which is about eight years in Lego bricks. No I’m kidding, Legos are not constrained by social constructs like time. That’s for another time… if they believed in it. Still in the store, I have now been approached by a total of four employees asking if I need help. “Yes, but not in the way you’re offering,” I think to myself.
I still have about thirty minutes left on my lunch break because even though I’m unemployed I still set boundaries, so I wander around the twenty-foot-wide store. There’s a back room with a New York display case, but I quickly realize it’s actually a space geared towards children with ADHD (or maybe toward people of all ages whose existential distress is such that only the mindless task of sticking plastic bricks together can relax them).
It’s colorful and claustrophobic and populated by tiny, filthy stools and smudged tables littered with Legos varying in size and color. Like a Lego bat out of Lego hell, I get out as quickly as I can. I continue to make my way around the railroad-style store, which is occupied by fellow enthusiasts. There’s a young, skinny, Asian woman who is investigating a Star Wars display. I like to think that we could be friends. Other than that it’s mostly families of Spanish or Italian tourists; very nuclear – a mother, a father, and one child who seems to be very disinterested. This seems to be the standard.
I end up back at the front of the store, once again faced with the failed greeter. The acne on his face makes it look like he stumbled under a pepper grinder for one quick twist. I am consciously trying to be a better person, so why not take this opportunity to give him a second chance and make me feel good about myself?
I generously ask him, “Do you carry the architecture series?” because you can be cultured and also like to play with Legos. I am sure that the gentleman cornering another employee in the aquatic section would agree with me. The greeter gets another employee to escort me over to the section, a full ten steps away from where we stand. This second employee lingers while I admire the Lego Arc De Triomphe. We agree that the architecture series is “cool.” He leaves. I notice the miniature Lego men inset on the Arc De Triomphe. They don’t skimp on details, I’ll give them that. It’s only been about seven minutes, but you know when it’s time to go.
As I leave I pass another employee, the one who managed to escape the elderly Lego enthusiast. “Have a good night,” I say.
“Hi, how are you!” he automatically responds. I push the thick glass door open, successfully, and just as it closes I hear a muffled “…Good night!”