True What They Say

The only retail store in downtown Iowa that does not sell Hawkeyes merchandise is the Maharishi Enlightenment Center, which snookers you in with promises of a complimentary, organic peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and 80% off all apparel, and then, the moment you realize that all you have for apparel is an end table of effeminate men's shorts with elastic waist bands and tapered legs, in pastel shades that will get your block knocked off on Dubuque St. after midnight on a Friday, tries to sign you up for a lifetime of herbal supplements and transcendental meditation classes. The cult side of things must be humming along behind closed doors, because on the front side of things, you've got a ton of retail space moving very little merchandise. Every tone is white aging to beige, and the medicinal aroma is overpowering, as though a giant ball of that smelly cotton stuffed into the top of a supplement bottle has just engorged your head like a metroid. The Maharishi Enlightenment Center manages to squeeze the most floor space into the smallest product inventory of any business I've ever known. Aside from the table of shorts and a few flyers, you have one or two sofas, a floor mat for yoga practice, and a couple shelves, and nothing else, in a space large enough to accommodate a full video arcade. The ambience of a video arcade--assaultively loud, cluttered, artificial, smoky--is like the perfect inverse of the MEC's sedative nullities, but somewhat less rebarbative. The cashier's hair looked like vipers, and she wore a white tunic previously seen on a Bacchant, and as she followed me around the store sizing up my aura, I thought the chances were decent and escalating that I had only been fed the organic sandwich to fatten me up prior to my ritual disembowelment and ingestion. When I finally escaped into the unconditional neon embrace of a Buffalo Wings and Roasters, I was breathing deeply from relief, and a great peace began to spread over my body. Breathing is key.