This weekend while we were in Norman for the OU-Baylor game I took the opportunity to take a stroll past the front window of the men’s clothing shop I used to work at. Since the company has long since shut down its stores I suppose I can just give up the whole “anonymity” thing and tell you that the one year – and one day – that I spent working at Harold’s was among the worst in my entire life. It wasn’t just the store’s fault; I was doing a pretty good job of self-sabotage in general back then, but working there was not the best.

But I have to say, a highlight of my time at Harold’s, a time that I enjoyed, were the times when I got to hang out at their store on Campus Corner in Norman, which was the original location.

Of course, this was back when the owners of Harold’s were doing their best to destroy all of Campus Corner by driving rents sky-high, effectively shutting down some of my favorite places, including LaBaguette, where my friends and I would go in high school on Friday nights to hang out, drink coffee, talk philosophy and pretend to be three years older and eighty times more pretentious than we actually were. God, did I love those times. They also had sabotaged the original Harold’s store by opening an outlet just around the corner, which meant that customers would come look at what we had, take up hours of our time trying things on, and then go next door to get the exact same thing for seventy percent off; it’s any wonder the company imploded.

I did love hanging out on the Corner. It made me feel connected to college, again, and to a college I love and where I eventually earned my master’s degree. The presence of aforementioned retail outlet, and the generally dwindling business on Campus Corner at the time (see above, re: sky-high rents) meant that the Norman store was SLOOOW. Entire weeks would creep by where, if it weren’t for the fact that we were the only place in Norman selling Jack Purcells at the time, we wouldn’t have made any sales. The front door opened at the top, and we’d leave it open all day long just to let the fresh air in. My boss and I would hang out, one person in the store, the other on the sidewalk smoking, shooting the breeze for hours. That part was fun.

One day I was in the store by myself. It was a beautiful, sunny, crisp autumn day and I was just watching foot traffic amble by on the Corner. Suddenly, a stoner sort of wandered up. He had greasy hair, a dirty, tie-dyed shirt and eyes the color of maraschino cherries. He stopped in front of the door where I was standing and looked down at the tree on the sidewalk, where he saw this:

Which, I dunno, I guess that’s a little strange, a plug socket at the bottom of a tree. But I’d been looking at it for months from just a few feet away and it never seemed that odd. But this stoner, he was really taken by it. He stopped, and started staring at it, and then back at me, a giant grin growing on his face.

“That,” he said at last, “is fucking art.”

I smiled and nodded but said nothing.

“No, no, no, no, man, no,” he said as if I’d argued with him. “That shit … is fucking … fucking … ART.”

At this point I pursed my lips together in an attempt to keep from laughing, because I wanted him to continue. I was eager to hear his version of art criticism.

“I mean, like, look! It’s a fucking … pluuuuuuug … in a fucking … tree.”

“That’s fucking … ART, right there, is what that shit is, there. It’s fucking ART.“

He sort of stumbled around awhile, each repetition of the word “ART” getting louder and more pronounced, until a small crowd had gathered to watch his bizarre performance piece, which, like any good show on the Fox network, ended as soon as people started watching it. He wandered off in the direction of the recently-closed LaBaguette, mumbling about what bullshit it was that that place had closed down because that place was fucking ART, it was fucking THE SHIT.

At times like that, I didn’t mind that job so much, but they were few and far between, and I was eventually ripped from the Campus Corner store to do bitch work at the 50 Penn Harold’s. Things turned out pretty okay, so I guess I can’t be bitter.

An interesting side note to this story: when I was taking these pictures, I was standing next to two women who had run into each other and clearly had not seen one another in a long time. There was a huggy, middle-aged-lady reunion happening as I snapped the 329 on the door and then the FUCKING ART. I was vaguely aware that the two women’s families had stopped in a small knot on the sidewalk, and when I stood up from photographing the plug socket, I found myself FACE TO FACE, inches away, from one of the guys I once worked with at the 50 Penn Harold’s. He was actually an okay guy, and has since opened a wildly successful store of his own, but it was such a shock, such a weird, weird coincidence to run into him that I said nothing.

I don’t think he recognized me – I look quite different now, having aged a bit, changed the way I wear my hair and gotten glasses, so I’m hoping he didn’t realize who I was and think I was being rude when I ducked my head and practically RAN away from him. Coincidences like that are too much to bear, and anyway, AWKWARD, right, like, ”HEEEYYY, remember that thing we both did that I was terrible at and got fired from? BOY THOSE SURE WERE THE DAYS, HUH? Did you get a good look at this FUCKING … ART?“