text: The shop was shutting down for the summer, outside temperatures raged in the triple digits but inside the hipster buzzards picked over the remnants of the shop's merch like bloodthirsty carrion, tearing and clawing at the scraps of vintage rags with a greedy abandon. I awkwardly shuffled about with a smirk on my face, musing to myself at the scene. I'd been dragged here by two young women whom I'd recently considered renting a house with, and after a day spent real estate browsing in the summer's swelter the ladies needed a brief respite to shop. Thankfully the store's owners had anticipated gentlemen such as myself and had supplied the shop with a relatively comfortable couch for me to sit and wait upon.\n  It didn't take long for me to find what I wanted, as I assume most men shop I immediately spotted the few gems amongst a sea of recycled clothes and fashion ephemera of days gone by. In this little closet boutique you'll find a veritable sea of ladies items and a few racks of mens clothes cordoned off to a side corner. I managed to find an old levi's jean jacket at half off, probably won't get to bust that out until the end of November but I anticipate that with glee. I also managed to spot a King Crimson tee shirt with the howling face of their 1969 debut album's cover emblazoned across the front, the store's owners had safety pinned a handmade price tag on the collar with a misnomer label \"Pink Floyd's the Wall T\" chuckling to myself I decided I'd use it as a bookmark later.\n  The ladies shopped for what seemed like hours and I played with the daughter of one of the girls to pass the time, feeding her a cheerio one at a time as she desperately pawed at my neon orange fanta bottle. The whole store being half off I knew we'd be there a while as the girls sifted through the goods, I day dreamed about the Karmann Ghia parked in the lot out front, doomed to live out it's days as a mere marketing piece advertising the store. I empathized with that car, I imagined how it had lived out its youth probably speeding down the pacific coast highway only to languish in idle retirement as a show piece for the shop it was betrothed to, and in a way I suppose that's how a lot of us end up. Is it better to burn out, careening off the cliffs of life's pacific coast highways or to fade away in the parking lot's of sunny strip malls? Perhaps I'll never know