The Wrinkled Prune

In 1989, I became infatuated with a Pennsylvania band called The Ocean Blue, especially their haunting song “Drifting, Falling.” Naturally, I needed the CD. For reasons that now escape me, I decided to buy it at one of the strangest retail establishments I have ever entered: a Northern California gift shop called The Wrinkled Prune.

How do I describe The Wrinkled Prune?

It would be easier to describe what it didn’t sell.

The store trafficked in novelty candies, decorative soaps, greeting cards, party supplies, imported chocolates, whimsical knickknacks, coffee mugs with forgettable slogans, scented candles, stuffed animals, and dozens of miscellaneous objects whose sole purpose seemed to be occupying shelf space until someone bought them out of mild confusion.

But merchandise wasn’t the real mystery.

The real mystery was this:

Why did The Wrinkled Prune exist?

And why on earth would anyone give a store that name?

The answer begins with the owner.

I attended high school with him. I’ll call him T. He drifted around the popular crowd, but never as one of its genuine members. He functioned more like its court jester—the lovable mascot whose chief social responsibility was to laugh at himself before everyone else could. Slightly overweight and perpetually goofy, T possessed a remarkable gift for turning his own awkwardness into entertainment. Whenever something struck him as funny—which was often—he erupted into volcanic laughter. His entire body convulsed. His fists clenched. He bounced on the balls of his feet while his thick black hair flopped wildly in every direction like a malfunctioning wind-up toy.

Most people recoil from ridicule.

T converted it into currency.

After graduation, however, he seemed directionless. His father, a successful businessman, apparently decided that if purpose wouldn’t find his son, perhaps purpose could be purchased. So he bought T a gift shop.

One afternoon I wandered inside. T stood behind the counter surrounded by several employees—all attractive young women in their late teens. I couldn’t help imagining the father’s reasoning. Maybe ownership would transform his son into a businessman. Maybe responsibility would attract confidence. Maybe confidence would attract a girlfriend. Parents have financed stranger dreams.

In retrospect, The Wrinkled Prune felt like high school extended by other means.

The name itself was a form of self-parody. A prune occupies an unfortunate place in the cultural imagination. It conjures wrinkles, old age, constipation, nursing homes, and the slow betrayal of the human body. Throughout adolescence T had made himself the punchline. Why stop now? Why not build an entire business around the joke?

Unfortunately, self-awareness is not a business model.

The Wrinkled Prune hemorrhaged money. Within a year it vanished, leaving behind little more than an unforgettable name and my copy of The Ocean Blue. I don’t know what became of T. He always struck me as fundamentally decent—a man less interested in success than in being liked. I hope life eventually showed him more kindness than high school had.

But I have never forgotten that store.

In fact, I think nearly all of us carry around some version of The Wrinkled Prune.

What I’m describing is the vanity project: an enterprise undertaken less because the world needs it than because its creator needs the world to notice it. It is a monument to the self disguised as a public service. In the pre-digital age, vanity projects usually belonged to the wealthy. A millionaire financed an independent film no one watched, published an autobiography no one requested, endowed a museum wing bearing his name, or commissioned an oversized oil portrait in which he appeared to possess the moral gravity of Abraham Lincoln. Vanity required substantial capital.

Today, vanity has been democratized. For the price of a webcam, microphone, and broadband connection, anyone can launch a podcast, livestream for six hours to an audience of twelve, or begin every video with the solemn declaration, “People have been asking me…” when no such people exist. The internet has transformed vanity from a luxury reserved for aristocrats into a subscription service available to anyone with Wi-Fi. Fortunately, not every podcast, YouTube channel, or livestream is a vanity project. Some genuinely educate, entertain, or enrich public life. The defining question is not whether anyone is watching, but whether the creator would continue producing the work if no one were.

The desire beneath all this is perfectly human. We want to matter. We want to belong. We want to participate in the conversation instead of watching it through the window. But the digital age has turned belonging into branding. We are encouraged to cultivate audiences instead of friendships, niches instead of curiosities, and identities narrow enough for algorithms to categorize. We are constantly reminded to “find our lane,” as though a human being should resemble a freeway exit.

I am hardly exempt.

For fifteen years I maintained a YouTube channel devoted primarily to watches. On its best days, it attracted thousands of viewers. Yet over time I noticed an uncomfortable truth: every new video fueled the very obsession I claimed to be examining. At sixty-four, I have reached the stage of life where accumulation should be giving way to simplification. Instead, the algorithm quietly whispered, “Buy another watch. Make another video.”

Occasionally I wandered away from watches and made videos about other subjects that interested me.

The algorithm responded with majestic indifference.

Business was slow.

No one wandered into The Wrinkled Prune.

That lesson was difficult but valuable. Unless you possess genuine expertise or offer something distinctive, a channel devoted to miscellaneous fascinations resembles a gift shop selling decorative soaps, imported candy, birthday balloons, and novelty coffee mugs under one bewildering roof. You are not building an audience. You are stocking shelves. Your vanity insists that the world needs one more opinion. The world politely walks past your front window.

Eventually, The Wrinkled Prune closes.

Does this mean we should silence ourselves? Stop writing? Abandon every attempt to contribute?

Not at all.

Life unfolds in seasons. There are years when your voice resonates widely and years when almost no one hears it. Neither condition should define your worth. During quieter seasons, remain curious. Read deeply. Listen carefully. Accumulate wisdom rather than followers. If, in time, you discover something genuinely worth saying that improves another person’s life, speak. If not, there is dignity in remaining silent.

Just don’t open The Wrinkled Prune.