The Lunchbox
When I was in High School I coveted an Argentina Jersey. It didn’t go so well. The jersey maintained an unflattering odor that I failed to recognize for 11 months. My first and only football jersey was none other than number 32 for the Buffalo Bills, O.J. Simpson. For all you youngins, O.J. used to play football but now he’s a famous criminal. After the Argentina jersey, I don’t remember pining over any object or keepsake. In fact, due to post traumatic smelly jersey disorder, I claimed I was above such nonsense.
Then, one day in my late 20’s, I visited Rose’s Flower Shop in Wauwatosa, WI. I perused the store for either birthday, anniversary or “I’m sorry for being an asshole” flowers for my girlfriend, but nothing grabbed my attention. Not because I can’t appreciate the beauty of flowers but because of all the lunchboxes. The store had at least a hundred mesmerizing, time-traveling, reminiscing, throw-back to my childhood lunchboxes: The Six Million Dollar Man, The Brady Bunch, The Incredible Hulk, The Adams Family, The Dukes of Hazard, The 82 Brewers, The Temptations, Charlie’s Angels (with and without Farrah Fawcet), Police Squad, The Beatles, Welcome Back Kotter, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Jenner, Hulk Hogan and the lunchbox that instilled in me that bygone yearning to own something awesome – Pele.
“What kind of flowers are you looking for?” the clerk asked me.
“Flowers, yeah, I’m not sure. I guess, you know, a bouquet.”
“Okay. I can do that. What’s your price range?”
“What’s the deal with all these lunchboxes? I mean, they’re awesome. Are they collector’s items? Are they for sale? How much do they cost?”
“The owner collects and sells them.”
“Is the Pele one for sale?”
“You’d have to ask him, but he’s not in right now.”
I’m pretty sure I left the store with flowers; I’m positive I left the store with an overwhelming desire to be the owner of a Pele lunchbox.
The owner informed me the lunchbox cost $50. In my world, $50 was a little steep for a variety of reasons. First, I was a youth soccer coach, bartender and administrative assistant at the time – I wasn’t exactly swimming in the Benjamins. Second, it was $50 for a lunchbox?! Third, as you’ve learned, I’d decided years ago I was above caring about things. I haughtily claimed I was an evolved individual, void of the societal trappings to be defined by ownership of objects. I am free, I thought, because I am tethered to ideas not things. I should’ve been living in a tent reading Walden Pond, probably dying of starvation because my outdoor survival skills are quite poor except for a unique ability to tolerate various temperatures.
Not only was I enlightened by the betrayal of my Argentina Jersey purchase, in 1991 my family home had a fire. I lost trophies, posters, medals, albums, clothes, keepsakes, photos, and my computer. When all that stuff was either burned or water or smoke damaged, I realized my life didn’t change. Some things, like clothes, you had to replace, and others, like trophies, you just live without – no big deal.
So, as you’d guess, I came to my senses and didn’t purchase the Pele lunchbox. Bullshit! A few days later I bought that Pele lunchbox because it was quirky, unique, nostalgic and, I was certain, no one I knew had ever seen or owned a Pele lunchbox. It was going to be the greatest purchase of my life! My soccer friends would love it. “Where’d you get?” they’d ask jealously. “I’m so jealous,” they’d say jealously. “Can I touch it?” they’d ask as they massaged it jealously. I’d regale them with my Zen approach to not purchasing expensive and /or useless objects except, of course, in the case of the Pele lunchbox – a whimsical story about an impulse purchase. Yes, you heard me correctly. I decided that if I bought it, it would forever be remembered as impulsive and not the angst-ridden debate between my belief that objects are unimportant and my gluttonous desire to own this Holy Grail of 70’s Pop Art forever, making me the envy of every soccer person I know – even David Nikolic.
David is a good friend and former co-worker. David always had and still has cool soccer memorabilia because his dad Aleks, a Serbian immigrant, loves and lives soccer. From David’s birth he was inundated with all things soccer. Thus, purchasing the Pele lunchbox would accomplish two things: first I would have soccer memorabilia David didn’t, and second, no one would appreciate my purchase more than David – a double whammy if you will.
Post purchase, I stopped by David’s office at UWM prior to our weekly soccer tennis match. I debated telling him about the lunchbox but decided that it would be anticlimactic. It needed a big reveal. Maybe the following week I would bring a snack and water bottle and carry it inside my purchase. I’d stroll up to the court with my rare and beautiful possession and blow him away.
I leaned into David’s office, “You guys ready to play?” I asked while scanning his immaculate office full of cool soccer keepsakes and memories.
“Just one second, Harry,” he answered while reaching to grab his keys off a shelf. And there it was. Two shelves up, staring down at me with disappointment, my Pele lunchbox but in much better condition.
“That lunchbox is pretty cool,” I muttered, wanting to laugh out loud at myself as tiny tears trickled from my eyes.
“Yeah, I got it when I was kid, right after Pele signed with The New York Cosmos.”
I’m 50 now. It’s about 25 years since that purchase and 25 years of resisting similar purchases. After all, objects don’t mean anything to me, I’m above that. I am an enlightened individual walking our fair earth in a quest for experiences and interactions. Nothing penetrates my steadfast anti-thing-coveting approach to life even the signed copy of Edward Abbey’s final novel, Fool’s Progress, that I happened upon at Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon, in 2019. Who would need or want that on his bookshelf? Not me. I wouldn’t care about showing that timeless keepsake to friends and family and discussing the beauty and majesty of southern Utah and the life of one my favorite authors. I’m not that person at all. I don’t think about it one bit especially after not getting it for Christmas or my birthday, because I certainly wouldn’t buy something like that for myself…
