Though I have never fancied myself a decorator, I’ve always felt the need to fill empty shelves and cover blank walls. My guess is that this comes from my mother, because my brother does it, too. On our book cases we have little stuffed animals and trinkets taking up any space that isn’t books. The items don’t have to make sense either. I remember when I was in high school there was a promotion Pepsi was having where you collected points from their products and cashed those points in for prizes. There were hats and bikes, key chains and skateboards, dozens of things you could want with the Pepsi logo on them. After collecting the appropriate amount of points, I sent in for a poster. And not just any poster, a NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon poster. Now we make all kinds of decisions growing up that we look back on and scratch our heads, but this one in particular baffles me to this day. I don’t like NASCAR. I have never liked NASCAR. During the brief times when I thought it might be interesting to learn about NASCAR, I never contemplated it long enough to develop any semblance of loyalty for any driver. I guess I was obsessed with the plain white wall at the foot of my bed, and while thumbing through the Pepsi points catalog I must have thought “I need a poster, I have plenty of points, nothing else in this magazine looks remotely interesting or even practical . . . Jeff Gordon it is.” Funny thing though, there probably isn’t a sports star that would have made more sense on my wall whether they were drinking a Pepsi or not. Maybe something like . . . I don’t know . . . a hot babe or whatever.
Now when I buy posters, I like for them to have significance. Right now it’s either movies or music, although now this post makes me wonder if I should invest in some kind of hippie art. It really has to be something that I won’t get tired of looking at. The first poster I bought as an adult was the poster for the movie “Labyrinth” which was a favorite of mine as a kid. But that was just one poster. In a small apartment I needed something to go with it to cover more of the open space, but I knew it couldn’t just be another poster from a movie I liked. I wanted it to be a movie, yes, but I wanted the two movies to be related in some way. And wouldn’t you know it, after reading the credits for “Labyrinth” I saw that George Lucas himself was executive producer, so naturally the choice was easy for which poster would come next.
(I would now like to pause for effect.)
It may sound like I put too much thought into what goes on my walls, but this is really the easy part. The hard part is remembering to go to the store and buy frames and some of those poster adhesive strips. One of my posters sat in my room inside its tube for way too long because I was too cheap to spring for the supplies. I mean, yeah I could have just used thumb tacks, but when I grew to be a man I realized I was capable of making better decisions than that. These weren’t just whimsical purchases, these were investments. Investments that mean nothing in a life-and-death situation, but as long as those aren’t coming along too frequently for you, I see nothing wrong with a bit of indulgence. Plus, it’s like presenting the back cover of the book of you to people that come over. If a girl doesn’t like any of the posters you have up on the wall, there’s a good chance she’s not going to like you.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Wall to Wall.”
Blog-sterpiece Theater 