POLAROID DAYS
Yesterday, with my precious $4.99, I defied common sense. Like our sage Simon Morgan, I find that frequenting thrift stores can have a calming effect, a restorative one-heck, in my book, a trip to the Salvation Army is as good as liturgy. Used to be I’d leave the local shop with bags full of fifties frocks and silky camisoles. Over time, though, my intemperance meant I never wore these fine things, and so I turned to the knickknacks, curios, and gadgets. Anyway, it’s in this aisle that the most offbeat regulars linger, and that’s a treat in itself.
On this occasion the gem was a Polaroid Sun 600 LMS, an instant camera several years older than I and purchased for mere dollars. The buy was economical enough, so where was my defiance? This past February, Polaroid announced that, after 60 years on the market, their instant film products would be discontinued. Really, then, I was acquiring a clock along with my camera-time was running out! I take it back. Though sentimentality did figure in here (the chunky Sun 600 had stolen my heart), there was no breach of common sense. My logic: it was not despite the discontinuance of the film that I took my camera home that day, but because of it. If I’d not been pining over Polaroid ever since I heard the news, most likely I’d have reminisced for a moment and then passed the gadget by. Now, instead, I was in a hurry to get my hands on the thing, stock up on film, and revel in depleting it in unison with all other lovers of the stuff.
