The door chime plays In The Hall Of The Mountain King when I enter, and after passing racks and racks of white sweaters, all reading in black cursive Universal Dream Experiment, I reach the counter in the back of the shop, where a sales clerk, a young guy with a goatee and wide sideburns, wearing one of the sweaters for sale, greets me with a small wave.
My fingers rub the fabric of a sweater. Feels like high-quality knitting. I check the price tag, 35 euros.
“100 percent cruelty-free at every stage of the production,” he says with pride. There’s a lil rubix cube tattooed on his wrist.
“Can you help me out with something?” I ask. “I’m trying to find out about the website. I’m wondering if this has anything to do with the website?”
His head cocks slightly, eyes shining, “Excuse me, sir?”
“The website? There’s a website.”
He looks even more puzzled.
I lean forward, whispering “Fractal, fractal, fractal…” and stop when I notice his expression is changing into a smile.
“I think you might have us mixed up with something else entirely,” he exclaims energetically. Animated gestures punctuate every phrase, “We’re a pop-up shop. We sell things for a limited period. The employees here have no relation whatsoever to the company which produces this stuff. I don’t even know what this means.” His thumbs point at the black cursive on his chest.
“Is there a manager around?”
He nods, “I’m the manager,” and trumpets a sound of triumph with his mouth.
“Is there a way to contact the distributor?”
“The distributor?” he snaps, stiffening up. “I do have a card,” and hands me a business card with an email address for the The Shopping Revolution under a logo of a triangle inside three concentric circles.
“Thanks for you help.”
He shrugs, “You have no idea how high I have to get to stand here all day long,” and repeats with a snort, rolling his eyes, “All day long.”
F is for Firehouse 