Every now and then, I forget how much I hate shopping malls. It's times like that when I am especially susceptible to shopping passes, shiny objects (typically in the form of shoes), and family members expecting gifts for Christmas.
I enjoy shopping in New York or any place that gives meaning to the phrase “popping into BCBG for a bit”. It’s just the natural flow of shopping in New York that delights me.
Shopping malls, on the other hand, do not occur in nature. Covered shopping venues were never in God’s plan (yes, giant concrete jungles filled with high-priced handbags are in the plan).
But New York City also has dirty streets, bad New Jersey speech patterns and my ex boyfriend so alas, I don’t live there.
Instead I live in a little corner of the Midwest/South (the Southernmost Northern City or the Northernmost Southern City, we can’t decide). Our indecisiveness seems to have hindered our ability to create a happy shopping environment so when I feel a mall craving coming on, I have no choice but to buy into the Midwest’s definition of shopping.
At least my annoyed condition was in good company. It's holiday shopping season and most malls have a higher probability of violent crime than say, downtown Detroit.
In the midst of the muddy slush tracked in by shoppers, shoving to reach Christmas sweaters (in inexplicably high demand), and inadvertently getting my photo snapped with an elf, the sky opened up and gave me a lovely little tidbit of dialog that warmed my heart:
Scene: waiting in a checkout line, eavesdropping (like I do).
Smoker Voice mom: I’m tired – how long is this mall?
Hot Topic daughter: Ten miles. (I realize that daughter is being snotty. If she weren’t wearing a hoodie covered in pink skulls and crowns, I might give her a solidarity nod)
Smoker Voice mom: Sh*t. (Smoker voices make that particular expletive that much more crass)
Hot Topic daughter (realizing that her mother believes her exaggeration): Yeah, sucks to be you.
Smoker Voice mom: Get me one of them electric wheelchairs will you? It needs a basket on the front. (Snarky girl highly doubts that an electric wheelchair will transport Smoker Voice ten miles. However, Snarky girl will gladly snicker when she sees her stranded 7 miles from her destination.)
Hot Topic daughter: Get it yourself.
Smoker Voice mom (pursing her much-wrinkled smoker lips): Little sh*t (she really loves that word, doesn’t she?) We can skip going to Hot Topic then.
Hot Topic daughter: (sighs and rolls her eyes the way only a teenager wearing 11 lbs. of eye makeup can)
Peace on Earth… y’all.
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2 comments:
made me LOL - i can completely picture it.
I can just hear it with your wonderful description. Personally I love the "quality" of the mall shopper during the holidays. It's people who haven't seen the mall in a year, nor the inside of a parenting manual.
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