You Make Me Feel So Young

I’m just back from New York I proudly informed a friend I bumped into in the pub last night. Yes, I can smell that he dryly replied softening my cough in one foul swoop. I think this might have put an end to my not so subtle references to New York I’ve been dropping into every second sentence to impress whoever I’m talking to. Would you like a coffee? Oh in New York I could have got you a tall skinny macchiatio in any flavour you want – unfortunately the canteen here has only black or white. You think this little Dutch tram is busy? You should see the L train on its way to Brooklyn during rush hour! That’s such a small slice of cheesecake, why in New York you could feed a family of six for a whole week with one of their slices. Yes, I was beginning to bore myself with my nonsensical nostalgic wittering. The smell my friend had accurately detected did in fact belong to New York though. To be more precise it belonged to Abercrombie and Fitch - possibly the world’s most terrifying shop, or lifestyle brand as they’d probably prefer to be called.

The first thing that strikes you upon entering is that the shop is run by vampires. Well I can only assume that this is why they prevent any natural light from entering. In every outlet they have pulled their shutters down so you never know what time of day or night it is. The next sense to be shocked into submission is your hearing. Booming music at night club levels makes every part of your body vibrate. This is possibly so you can’t hear the cashiers tell you just how much money you are about to part with. The last assault is on your nose. They pump the shop with their own brand of cologne, going as far as spraying it on all their clothes. They get so trigger happy you can actually smell the shop down the block long before you can see or indeed hear it. Trouble is that you are so dazed by the dark and inability to hear that your sense of smell takes over and you end up loving it. I ended up buying two bottles in the ensuing sensory confusion. The final straw that made me wonder if I’m just too old for this place was the half-naked young male models strategically placed to make the shop seem even more hip. Unfortunately they just made me feel horribly old and out of shape so I quickly fled the mayhem with my cologne in my sweaty hands and a buzzing in my terrorised ears.

New York made it up to me later on that evening as we hit the bars. There is something so utterly respectable and dignified at being asked to show your ID everywhere. In Europe I haven’t had that in about ten years. In New York I revelled every time the bouncer scrutonised my little Dutch ID card trying to understand even one word or figure out which of the numbers indicated my birth date. I even perfected the feigned annoyed look that you feel obliged to show when asked, despite loving every moment of it. Ignoring the fact that they were also asking people who easily looked over 50 I bounced inside confident that I looked ridiculously young for my age. Or maybe it was my new magic cologne that did the trick, who knows.