Senses and Sensorium Assignment

Senses Assignment

            For this assignment, I chose a location that has always left me uneasy. It was approximately two years ago, and my family and I travelled to New York City to see family and experience one of the most popular cities in the world. From the beginning of the trip, I had envisioned a huge, busy, fasted-paced atmosphere that had an abundance of activities to take part in and things to purchase. I wasn’t wrong, but I never accounted for the unethical and shady aspect of the city as I should have done. Now, every city has its good parts and bad parts, but being on a trip to a place with so much hype, I did not really incorporate negative thoughts in my preconceived idea of New York City. My dad, brother, and I decided to check out a small little music shop near where we were staying. It was a chilly, rainy,  May afternoon and we wanted something to do before the evening plans. As we approached the shop, the smell of rain and the brisk cold wind already began to agitate us as we approached the entrance. We walked into the shop which had one red sign above the window that read “MUSIC” in red, bold letters. As soon as we walked into the store, one of the salesmen pounced on the opportunity to try and sell us some items before I could even gain a first impression of the place. As he tried to hoax my dad into making a purchase, I soon realized that the store must have been going out of business due to the extreme amount of sales and the disorderly fashion in which the music equipment was placed. In the same way, the shop did not smell as bad as the organization of their product, but it did not smell good either. It smelt unkempt and musty. The salesman then told my dad a lie about their product so that he could possibly entice him to make a purchase. My dad, being an accomplished guitar player, immediately called him out on his false information and walked away from the conversation. At this point, I realized that we may have been leaving early. As we were leaving, however, I saw a sale on capos on the counter for extremely cheap, and I knew that the salesman knew we were not happy with him or his shop. So I bargained him down from the cheap price and purchased a capo for a tiny fraction of its actual cost. We left the store disappointed, but still gained something from the experience. After that, I realized that being naïve in a city like New York can leave you with a sour taste in your mouth. We still use the capo to this day, but we definitely will not return to the “MUSIC” shop again.