About a year ago, on a routine trip to a Bed Bath & Beyond store with my mom, I stumbled upon something unfamiliar. A dark, utilitarian-looking door, with no windows or openings. As I wondered what this door's purpose could be, I realized that perhaps I had finally stumbled upon the entrance to the elusive Beyond.
You see, when I was very young, I had yet to discern that there was no 'real' Beyond Section as there was more of a 'rest of the store'. Surely, in a forgotten corner of the market, there would lie the portal to a mysterious realm wherein existed nigh-impossible objects, being sold at half-price?
Pop culture may have lead to this conclusion; Sometime in the spring of 2006, I secretly 'borrowed' the forbidden fruit that was my older brother's Family Guy DVD. It was there that I saw Peter Griffin discover the Beyond, portrayed as a void populated by equations, UFOs, and coffee mugs. Not too long afterward, my family rented the movie "Click", in which Adam Sandler obtains his time-controlling remote in the Beyond, rendered there as a cavernous laboratory.
These two vastly different interpretations left a major impression on my young mind, and I would spend my next few trips to the Bed Bath & Beyond attempting to comprehend where "bed and bath" ended and "beyond" began. My initial efforts proved to be less-than-fruitful, but they did amuse my parents. Soon enough, the Beyond section became something of an inside joke in our household.
Eventually, my easily-distracted mind found other things to hyper-fixate on, and I forgot all about my search for the evasive section. Some time after that, I finally came to understand what the "Beyond" in "Bed Bath and Beyond" actually meant, and I finally put the superstition behind me... or so it seemed.
But then, over a decade later, there I was, wondering if I was standing in front of the portal to the beyond section. Rational thought told me I was being absurd; There was absolutely no way that anything past that door would be as bombastic as any of the conclusions I made about it as a child. But I couldn't help letting my imagination get the better of me. What would I find in there? Would I obtain Sandler's magic remote and become master of the flow of time?
Slowly I approached the entrance. Sweat dripping on my forehead, I pressed my hand against the platic door, and carefully pushed....
...It was a storage area.
I had never felt more dissapointed in my life.