{"id":1806,"date":"2011-02-17T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-17T15:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/?p=1806"},"modified":"2017-12-27T14:35:26","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T14:35:26","slug":"bronners-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/bronners-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Bronner’s Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

From:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

As she walked by, she said<\/span>, \u201cI have to get out of here before my eyes start to bleed.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was already dizzy. Disorientation was setting in as one more mirror of starbursts yielded to another room of them.\u00a0 I knew I had passed Section 8 before, but was no longer certain when.<\/p>\n

And I knew that my companion was was showing the early signs of Stage II when she said, \u201cOh, but these are cute\u201d and wandered off toward a tree buried in plastic fruit and digital dog photos.<\/p>\n

Once BD sets in at that level, full recovery is rare. A shelf of Spartan-opoly and Elvis lightboxes is not enough to save you by sheer kitsch. I followed oddly-shaped footprint stickers on the carpet, hoping they would lead me to an exit door. Did I just pass a ceramic asparagus ornament?<\/p>\n

I passed dozens in red aprons, marked as Stage III, terminal. They are here a full 365 days a year. One stood forlorn near a hot dog service.\u00a0 Another moved boxes, more boxes, ever more boxes. Their eyes were like those of Yukon Cornelius or Charlie-in-the-Box. Flat glazed discs.<\/p>\n

All the occupations were here.\u00a0 Nurses, firefighters, teachers, construction workers, each with personalized ornaments: \u201cDentists get to the root of it\u201d dangling from vinyl pine needles and tinsel.<\/p>\n

My friend had vanished in a nest of Easter plush toys and I thought that I might go back for her, but I knew it was too late.\u00a0 The PA announced a video of the \u201cAmazing World of BD\u201d which would begin in a few moments. I wondered if the condition was Bavarian as I abandoned my friend.\u00a0 But the footprints only led to a restroom, and a child leading her mother by the hand said, \u201cWe need this, mommy!\u201d And she pointed to a $75 Victorian-facsimile doll marked \u201cCollectible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turtledoves and false beards, six foot stockings and inflatable snowpeople. Brenda Lee and the Mormon Tabernacle. A\u00a0 30 foot styrofoam snowtown with little plastic swans which magnetically drag themselves across a plastic pond. In one remote corner of the southwest of the building, a shelf which labeled itself \u201cReligious.\u201d<\/p>\n

I heard a moan behind me: male or female, in bliss or despair, I was not sure. It was asylum, but I had found an Exit sign. My skin itched. My calves seized up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despair. My Visa card appeared. Merry merry february\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From:   As she walked by, she said, \u201cI have to get out of here before my eyes start to bleed.\u201d I was already dizzy. Disorientation was setting in as one more mirror of starbursts yielded to another room of them.\u00a0 I knew I had passed Section 8 before, but was no longer certain when. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247,248],"tags":[648,672,379,665,692],"class_list":["post-1806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chizblog","category-culture-criticism","tag-capitalism","tag-christmas","tag-consumerism","tag-holiday","tag-materialism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2010\/12\/bron1.jpg?fit=448%2C336&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":826,"url":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wrong-number\/","url_meta":{"origin":1806,"position":0},"title":"Wrong Number","author":"Steve Chisnell","date":"2009 Feb 14","format":false,"excerpt":"\"I haven't received any call back from you.\" I didn't know whose voice it was on my cell phone. 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In frustration, I responded. \"Then let me talk to someone who will do more than just her job.\" Perhaps I was cruel, but it was clear that the customer service operator on the phone was not prepared to service my customer-self.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ChizBlog"","block_context":{"text":"ChizBlog","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/category\/chizblog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/08\/philosophy-cat.jpg?fit=425%2C300&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1635,"url":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/road-through-henan\/","url_meta":{"origin":1806,"position":5},"title":"Road Through Henan","author":"Steve Chisnell","date":"2008 Jun 25","format":false,"excerpt":"As we drove through the hills of Henan on our way to Luoyang, we passed a steady stream of trucks moving east and west; the eastward trucks were moving in our direction, spreading goods to the major and middle cities, and the westward trucks, heavily laden, were taking supplies to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ChizBlog"","block_context":{"text":"ChizBlog","link":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/category\/chizblog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/08\/Chinese-shoppers.jpg?fit=400%2C300&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1817,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806\/revisions\/1817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}