“The guy who was dressed up to look like Buffalo Bill?”

“Remember that one T-shirt?”

In addition to the standard run of “Homeland Security,” “Red Nation,” “Warriors,” and “Native Pride” T-shirts, the guy had shirts in several different colours that said “Will Dance for Booze!”

“This shirt is almost as bad,” said Mimi. “Plus, it’s black.”

I wander the store while Mimi tries on the clothing she isn’t going to buy, and I wonder, not for the first time, if the majority of the junk has arrived here courtesy of death.

Someone dies, and whoever is left standing has to deal with the accumulations of a life. Jerry gets the piano. Thelma gets the silverware. Angela gets the painting hanging over the sofa, which the parents bought when they went on that cruise. The dining room table and chairs go to a niece who just got married, and the TV winds up in the basement of a nephew who is working on a man cave and just needs a neon beer sign to finish off the room.

The rest is sent to a thrift store, because it’s cheaper than renting a Dumpster. This is not, strictly speaking, recycling. It’s more a version of abandonment.

When Mimi finds me, I’m holding a kitchen implement of some sort that looks as though it could double as a sex toy.

“Don’t get excited,” she says. “It’s for pasta.”

“You find anything?”

“I talked to one of the clerks,” says Mimi. “She gave me the name of a street.”

“A street?”

“Near the clock.”

“We’ve seen the clock.”

“Watches,” says Mimi. “Parizska is the place for watches.”

“You want to go watch shopping?”

“No.” Mimi rolls her eyes. “You want to go watch shopping. I want to watch.”

The clerk’s exact instructions were to go to the clock, walk around the square, find the rich people, and follow them. This proves to be easier than it might seem. And Parizska is lousy with watch shops.

“You get to pick one store,” says Mimi, “and one store only.”

“I am the master of my fate.”

“So, choose well.”

We walk along Parizska for a few blocks in each direction. And then we do it again. I look at the watch shops, while Mimi reads the menus posted at the restaurants along the way.

“Okay,” she says, “who’s the lucky winner?”

I choose the shop with the security doors and the armed guard, the shop with the dark wood and polished brass. I have to ring the bell and wait for someone to let us into the small foyer. There we have to wait for the door to close behind us before the door in front opens and lets us into the shop proper.

By the time I step into the shop and clear the guard, I’m feeling important.