Perfect Skin by Nick Earls

say that. Particularly if you’re about to tell me a thesis topic. They’re all either incomprehensible or funny or both. It’s a rule.
    Okay. I’m looking at retail. The psychology and sociology of retail. I transferred here to be with a particular supervisor. I’d read some things she’d written on cycle times in calendar-driven retail.
    Calendar-driven retail?
    Sure. There are a lot of different ways it’s described, but the idea is that, spread out across the year, there are specific sale points, on top of general commerce. Some of them are demographically focused, some aren’t. My supervisor has an interest in Fathers’ Day. Me? I went right for the big one. Christmas.
    So, what about Christmas exactly?
    Exactly?
She stops, smiles.
Okay, I’ve got a working title of ‘Christmas retail cycle times seen from the perspective of the rise and fall of Tickle-Me-Elmo’.
    You can’t tell me this is the bit where I’m not allowed to laugh.
    But I do get to explain. You have to let me explain.
    Don’t worry. I’d like to hear you explain. Any time anyone travels a thousand miles to study Tickle-Me-Elmo, I do like to know why.
    Are you still going to run with me after this?
    I’m still going to run with you. With this thesis topic I’d only want to run with you more. But explain. Surprise me.
    Okay. Here’s the thing with Tickle-Me-Elmo. You’ve got two extremes, right? Fathers’ Day is, like, offensively stable. Power tools, angle grinders, year after year.
    The last bastion of fifties stereotypes. Big chunky submarine-under-the-ice novels, a boxed set of Rocky videos. I know what you’re saying.
    But I don’t tell her I’m so out of the Fathers’ Day league that I thought it was ankle grinders for years (the ads always shout in that bloke-frequency voice, which I can’t hear clearly). Not that I’m any more certain now about what angle grinders are for. Which angles they grind, for instance. I’ve got plenty of angles around the house, but I haven’t seen one that could be improved by grinding.
    Exactly,
she’s saying.
As opposed to all the crap Mothers’ Day stuff. A different set of stuff but also stable. But Christmas is constructed in a different way. Partly, obviously, because everyone’s supposed to score a present, but it’s also less stable than it used to be when it comes to present choices. Monopoly, for example, was the archetypal Christmas gift for a couple of generations. You probably got given it yourself.
    Well, yeah, but don’t make me feel historic about it.
    What we see now is the fad Christmas. You get one shot at it if you’re a manufacturer. You pitch your brilliant, new idea into the pre-Christmas market. Hype it as hard as you can. You’ve got a couple of weeks to create anticipation, then another couple of weeks to start shifting it. One technique is to under-supply. Empty shelves make news. And the smart thing to do is target the under-sixes. They’re much better networked than they used to be, and no-one likes to disappoint them. They get really excited about Christmas, and they’re not good at putting disappointment into perspective. So, in 1997, they all wanted Tickle-Me-Elmo,
she says, and I love the intensity of it, the way it’s coming out like apitch. The way she’s completely over the fact that saying Tickle-Me-Elmo with even half this earnestness should be very funny.
It cost sixty bucks then, but the black-market price hit several hundred. In 1998, they were twenty-nine ninety-five. Their time had passed.
    So what you’re saying is, if Lily was a few years older, and I’d bought her one in 1997 I’d be a present-buying god, but if I bought her one in 1998 I’d only be showing her how past it I was.
    That’s it exactly. Might as well get her Monopoly. Don’t tell me you didn’t think all this through before you