Pier 1 Imports and I have had a long and, until the incident recounted here, relatively happy history together. We go a long way back – all the way to roomfuls of wicker furniture (and a sturdy wooden armoire that we still use in Boston) and their fashion foray into gypsy-like garments and jewelry (I still have a patchwork velvet vest from their old Porter Square location). Throughout their various focuses over the years, the one thing that they have done better than almost everyone else is their selection of pillows. Instead of having the same things that every Pottery Barn or West Elm store has, they have always maintained a unique collection. Some of the more extravagant ones tend to be pricier than many other places, but are usually worth it. They also supplement those with regular sales that have kept me coming back over the years. That all changed a few days ago.

I was in the process of revamping our guest bedroom, as two of the pillows we had on the bed were finally done, and I was on the lookout for something to match or complement the duvet, which was a difficult paisley riot of soft salmon and a green that sat infuriatingly along the lines of celery and celadon, something to which most pillows failed at doing justice. After exhausting the Marshalls and TJ Maxx and Homegoods at local disposal, I remembered Pier 1 Imports and made the very short drive around the corner to their Wolf Road location, Store #0116.

As usual, I got distracted by the displays and ended up almost taking all their summer outdoor goods home with me, then I got my focus back and headed to the wall of pillows. I knew the colors and design of the bedspread, and I knew what would work. I made several passes of the wall, and the clearance section, and just as I was about to give up, the perfect accent pillow appeared as if by magic. It was marked down to $19.98, but I would have gladly paid full price because it would work out perfectly. The colors were the muted ones of the bedspread, the cream in it was just dark enough to match the underlying background of the design, and the pattern was strong enough to stand up to the swirls of paisley, but quiet enough to blend in with muffled harmony. It was as if the pillow gods had smiled upon me for one brief shining moment. I quickly brought it to the register but it wasn’t ringing in. (I’m from the retail days when you could actually override items and key in their correct price.) Just then, the manager was coming in from the back room, and when she saw what was going on she was more than pleased to announce that if it was a redline item they wouldn’t be able to sell it to me.

Now, I worked in retail for a number of years. I know how it works. There are rules, and there are customers. When the two don’t exactly align, a good manager works with the latter to achieve satisfaction on the part of a returning entity. She was not a good manager.

“I can’t sell it because if I sell it then a notification will go out and we’ll get in trouble for selling it,” she said with a smug smile. (I’m not sure how a notification would go off when it wouldn’t even ring in, but whatever.)

“Wait, you have an item on your salesfloor that is marked with a price on it, and you can’t sell it to a customer who wants to purchase it?” I asked, more than a little incredulous, but trying to be nice because I knew how some people with a tiny amount of power tend to abuse it, particularly in the retail world.

“Sorry, it’s redlined, I can’t sell it,” she said.

“Well, why was it out on the sales-floor if you can’t sell it?” I asked, watching the pillow slowly being taken away.

“Oh, I will be dealing with that too!” she said gleefully, and with that she whisked my perfect pillow into the back room, never to be seen again.

If the policy of Pier 1 Imports is not to sell their ‘redlined’ items, I understand. But when one finds its way to the salesfloor, and you have a customer willing to pay the full price on the ticket for it, I’m shocked that they would rather bring it back to the lost land of redlined pillows instead of making a sale. Where do those pillows go now? I’m guessing I would have paid more for that pillow than whatever other fate is about to befall it, and I would have a guest bedroom that I could tell people looked so perfect because of Pier 1 Imports.

Now the world and our guest bedroom visitors will be getting a very different story.

And Pier 1 Imports just lost a loyal customer.

UPDATE #1: Shortly after this post went live, someone from Pier 1 called me (as I had also sent the abbreviated story to their e-mail contact address). The woman apologized and said that in some instances they could not sell a redline item, and she asked if I had the item number so she could check. I told her I did not, but that the manager had checked and it was definitely redlined. She then asked if she could help me find an alternative. I thanked her and said I was capable of finding another pillow from elsewhere. So, I’d give them a point for reaching out, and take away a point for not offering a viable solution to a dumb, business-losing policy. In other words, this post stands.

UPDATE #2: Well, I’ll just let you read the e-mail for yourself.

Continuing our extreme weather conjuring whenever we throw a party, this past Saturday was a scorcher in every sense of the word. Luckily we bounced guests and ourselves in between the pool and the air conditioning and all was well with the world. Let’s take a quick look back, because some of us need to get back in the pool to survive.

Ease into things with these #TinyThreads.

No teasing, just pleasing. 

A gay summer read.

A hotel in Savanah: the DeSoto.

Yes, Mercury is still in retrograde. Hold onto your hats.

Preventing the ostriches from burning. 

The New Project: Once Upon A Watercolor.

And a promotional interview from fantasyland: Part 1 and Part 2. 

The first Madonna Timeline featuring something from Madame X: ‘Future’.

Keeping things even hotter were Hunks of the Day Charlie Taylor, Jacob Elordi, Rylan Clark-Neal, and Rafael Lemes. 

After a rainy and cold spring, summer slowly warmed up, and Alan returned his focus to the home and garden, where Andy patrolled the pool, and large swaths of ferns and grasses sprung up in verdant chartreuse splendor. The garden borders ran around the backyard in gracefully curving lines, and though it’s not big on space, it’s deceptively designed to draw the wanderer around corners and into shaded nooks. A towering stand of fountain grass hides a lavender lace-cap hydrangea, while the latter’s climbing cousin rambles over a worn wooden fence. Around another corner softened by a coral bark maple, a clump of lady’s fern elegantly lifts its red stems and green fronds over a carpet of sweet woodruff. A seven sons’ tree forms a canopy that joins the upper tiers of a maple, and one enters the little side yard as if going into a green tunnel. A newly-opened patch of evening primrose raises its cheery canary petals toward the sunlight, covering the base of a climbing pink sweet pea. Nearby, a clump of lavender provides a silvery backdrop for a roaming mound of lemon thyme in full white bloom. Pockets of mint are tucked in everywhere, its rampant invasiveness small price to pay for the luxury of its fresh scent wafting up whenever it is brushed. A bit of grapefruit mint offers variety and citrus effervescence.

This is the real-life setting for the fantasy-land version of ‘Once Upon A Watercolor’ and on the sunny day of a visit to Andy and Alan’s, it’s a fitting scene, one that finds the maker himself presiding in a flowing pair of colorful palazzo pants and a sheer caftan. It is exactly how one might imagine Alan flouncing about in the summer, and it surpasses expectations for sheer blatant campiness. A necklace encrusted with sparkling faux-jewels hangs around his neck, and he can’t decide whether to keep the large bright orange hat with a fuchsia bow on his head, or hold it in his hands. One is unsure whether this is for show, or if he’s out there like this every day. Both would be believable, though close friends would vouch for the latter. When it is suggested that he pose by the pool for a picture, he scoffs. Different world, different era.

A few months ago Alan purchased his first selfie-stick, and in the days since he’s used it only two times – the last one being on an anniversary weekend in Boston with Andy for a couple of shots before they went out to dinner. (“I’m not sure who tired of it first, me or Andy.”) It’s a rather shocking shift in priorities, anda telling testament to how far removed he is from the vainglorious self-obsession of modern social media, as well as his own well-documented past. (Truth be told, Ilagan has been taking selfies since his first Polaroid in 1986; there are boxes and boxes of evidence, and a sky-high pile of photo albums to back this up. If he proclaims to be tired of it, there’s no reason not to believe it; witness the steady decline and dearth of self-taken shirtless poses on his website for additional proof.)

These days his artistic output has been moving farther and farther from his own keen visage, a slow panning-out from the macro-view of introspection that he was stuck in for years to an outward-looking view of the world around him. Such movement from self-involvement bordering on self-obsession to someone looking out at the world is the sort of slow transition that can only be seen when you look back over his output for the past few years. It’s there in the evolution of projects – where once you couldn’t escape the repetitive parade of ass-shots now stands a stretch of blog posts that haven’t featured Alan in the altogether for quite some time. The bulk of his last project ‘PVRTD’ found him receding into the black-and-white background of most of his shots, if he was featured at all; ‘Once Upon A Watercolor’ doesn’t show him, his visage, or any symbolic stand-in whatsoever. There’s a certain freedom that comes from not tying yourself into your artistic output.

‘Once Upon A Watercolor’ is strikingly simple in concept. It’s a non-story that takes place in a single day – in fact, the single garden party of a day – and is mostly just a parade of the children in Ilagan’s life, and a minor flower allegory thrown in for artistic weight. A love-letter mostly to the parents of said children, it is also a sweet children’s tale – nothing much happens, no dangers or tensions present themselves, and at the end is the promise of a holiday sequel. From The Flower Party he’s throwing this summer to the annual Children’s Holiday Hour he holds in Boston each December, his recent work is a whimsical ode to childhood, the wonder and rawness to which Ilagan returns in his own watercolor works, which form the backdrop to the story.

He didn’t set out to paint the backgrounds themselves; Ilagan originally purchased a few collections of stock watercolor images featuring flowers and leaves and the like, but he was looking for something more abstract so as not to take away too much from the rhyme scheme he envisioned writing. He spent the last winter immersed in the experimental return to a favorite childhood past-time.

Perhaps slightly irksome to him, it’s typically been Ilagan’s family-friendly work that has garnered the highest praise of his creative endeavors. ‘Once Upon A Watercolor’ is no exception – several friends have remarked it is their favorite thing he’s ever done. “Something like ‘PVRTD’ will always be more thrilling and exciting to me than the lighter fare, because I’m more attracted to the darker themes when creating artistic work. ‘Once Upon A Watercolor’ is a different kind of challenge, requiring a lighter touch, which is more difficult in some ways.” It also required more editing and revisions than he’s ever done before. “The older I get, the more I realize that so much of a first draft of anything is just practice garbage. I used to be very concise and deliberate in what I put down in writing – now it’s mostly a sketch and the final version often ends up being something completely different, and hopefully better, than the initial, raw entry.”