Oval Office tchotchkes -- they’re hot
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is unable to find or account for tens of thousands of valuable mementos of Reagan’s White House years because a “near universal” security breakdown left the artifacts vulnerable to pilfering by insiders. ...
-- Los Angeles Times
A loan officer’s office. Wells Fargo. Simi Valley.
LO: So what brings you in today?
APP: I’d like to open a small business. Antiques. Collectibles.
LO: Weird. You’re the third person this week. So, like, furniture?
APP: Some furniture. Mostly other things.
LO: Such as?
APP: Plates, lamps, crocheted flags . . .
LO: Bizarre. A guy yesterday had the same stuff.
APP: Did he have a dive bell from the last Soviet nuclear submarine to patrol off U.S. waters?
LO: That he did not have.
APP: It’s amazing what people throw out.
LO: Tell me about it. My wife and I have a gorgeous coffee table that our neighbors were throwing out just because there are two cracks and their dog chewed the ends.
APP: Little elbow grease.
LO: Bingo. OK, so antiques . . .
APP: Antiques, yes, but also trinkets.
LO: Trinkets. Great. And a trinket is what, exactly?
APP: A trinket could be . . . say . . . a coaster from Air Force One. It could be, ohhh . . . I don’t know, a woodcarving of the Constitution signed by the Iran hostages in 1980. It could be belt buckles.
LO: You’re joking? Like, five different applicants have had belt buckles. They’re not Western-themed, are they?
APP: They are.
LO: Uh . . .
APP: I feel that I’m not painting a clear picture. Yes, we’re about hostage woodcarvings. And yes, we’re about cowboy belt buckles. But we’re also very much about the Cold War. Soviet memorabilia. Specifically the period from, say, January 1981 to January 1989.
LO: The ‘80s.
APP: You understand, I can tell. I was thinking of calling it “That ‘80s Store.”
LO: So was this other guy. Swear to God. And this one woman, last week, wanted to call her place “The Ronald Wilson Reagan Gift Shop.”
APP: Coincidence is funny.
LO: Not so much in business loans. OK, so it’s a boutique, then? Like those places on Melrose. Vintage mittens for $200.
APP: Yes and no. High-end junk. Eccentric. Far-out gifts.
LO: Like those stores on Melrose. With the weird clothes. Old stuff.
APP: Exactly. Except I have interesting stuff.
LO: Besides the belt buckles and the dive bell.
APP: I happen to have stumbled on some flags that flew above the White House in the 1980s.
LO: So did the other folks.
APP: (awkward laugh) And I suppose they’re all Pisces too!
LO: I don’t understand.
APP: Nothing.
LO: Sounds like there may be a glut of these . . . ‘80s items.
APP: Not of a hundred pieces of the Berlin Wall, there isn’t. I’ve already had a chat with the Sundance catalog.
LO: That’s interesting.
APP: It’s very interesting. These are good pieces, lots of graffiti. Also the last tactical nuclear missile built under communism. I see your expression, and I can assure you that it’s not armed.
LO: Well, that’s quite a . . .
APP: Oh, and I also happen to have come across this . . . this letter from Mikhail Gorbachev to Ronald Reagan. Do the others have that?
LO: Gorbachev? Letter? No, no Gorbachev that I remember. But one guy had an Idi Amin. The woman had a very funny one from the shah of Iran. That guy was hilarious.
APP: Huh. Do they have a racy one from Margaret Thatcher where she uses the word “honcho,” or one from Jimmy Carter explaining to Reagan how the presidency works? To be honest, I can envision a whole “Reagan Letters” section. I have that many.
LO: And you “found” these where?
APP: Different places. Library books. A Dunkin’ Donuts.
LO: Was he gay, Reagan? I’d heard he was secretly gay. Any truth to that?
APP: Who knows? Anything’s possible, right? I saw a note from John Major that could be easily misconstrued. There’s a letter from a young Dick Cheney asking him to be his Valentine.
LO: I kissed a man once.
APP: Sorry?
LO: Have you owned a business before?
APP: No.
LO: Any background in business?
APP: I went to the Harvard Business School.
LO: Wow.
APP: That was a lie.
LO: (laughing) You had me. I swear you had me.
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