I exited the elevator and began down the hall that I traversed just two days ago, when I realized that I was not on the right floor. A silly mistake? Perhaps. But what I noticed was enlightening…or weird, you might say. I hadn’t realized the mistake until I had approached where the doctor’s office should have been because the hallway looked just like the floor below. The hallways were both white with paintings and lithographs spaced out approximately every three feet and hung at the precise height of six feet. (Okay, maybe it was five and a half…but you get the idea.) As I turned to retrace my steps, a piece of artwork caught my eye and I stopped to admire it. The work wasn’t that much different from those on either side of it, but there was something that drew me to it. The colors were slightly darker than those around it and that’s when I realized I was at the mid-way point of the hallway. Someone had gone through the pains of making a focal point out of a long white hallway. “How weird is that?” I said to myself, as I moved on. Then I got to thinking about the artist of that painting…imagine the excitement of hearing his/her work had been purchased, only to find out that it is hanging in a lonely white hallway in a medical building. That’s gotta be kind of a bummer, don’t you think? I entered the elevator and pushed the second floor where I exited. Not to my amazement, it looked just like the third floor. And yes, it too had one piece of artwork that was slightly different from all the others smack dab in the middle of the hallway. It made me think of the designer who had the wonderful job of decorating hallways…hum. Imagine the excitement of graduating with an Interior Design degree only to decorate halls…again…bummer. Or not. Imagine the conversation with mom and dad…
“I got my first job! I’m so excited!” (Designer, for those of you not sure.)
“That’s great! What will you be doing?” (Parents)
“I’ll be decorating hallways.” (Designer, still excited.)
“Oh, that’s nice honey. (Mom who is trying to be encouraging…Dad who is trying not to laugh.) My trip to the doctors was weird…or what I was thinking was weird.
Then I realized something profound as I exited the highway on my way home. As I looked about me, I saw all the big box stores that I saw earlier on the exit by the doctor’s office. It was all the same. And I knew from experience that the exit further up the freeway had the same box stores too. When did every exit become a mirror imagine of the one before and after it? Was some commercial designer tasked with designing exits and he/she made them all the same? Was it just easier to make everything the same? Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the satisfaction in that? What was the focal point in all the sameness? Was it the mom and pop restaurant tucked between Dick’s Sporting Goods and Best Buy? Suddenly I could imagine getting off on the wrong exit and being lost in the sameness…I quickly looked around and that’s when I saw it, Duck’s Donuts, and I knew I was good.
