I Went to a Mall For the First Time in 10 Years

I went to a mall for the first time in 10 years. If you aren't familiar with malls, they're brightly lit retirement homes for chain stores.

Visiting hours can run anywhere from 12 to 14 hours a day, which they've timed out perfectly to allow you enough time to walk from the You are Here map to the other end of the mall in just 4 or 5 visits.

Don't be surprised if people at the other end of the mall are speaking a different language because it's entirely possible the mall is placed within several bordering countries because of its size.

If you're visiting the mall with your mother who wants a new chair, there will be lots to choose from, though most chairs will be occupied by people on their phones desperately searching how to find the exit in a mall.

How This Happened

I didn't consciously decide to not visit a mall for the past 10 years, I just haven't had a craving for torture even though the mall conveniently provides shoppers with competitive torture uniforms.

I'll admit that the invention of online shopping has made the mall experience a nostalgic one for me. I shop online and at local stores. Malls are places where people who haven't discovered the Internet go.

To keep up with technological trends some malls have incorporated TOUCH SCREEN MALL MAPS, which still only tell you that You Are Here but provide no understandable information about how to get to anywhere else.

The easiest way to find where you want to go in a mall is to ask someone carrying a bag from that particular store to point you in the right direction, unfortunately this only works if the person hasn't reentered the mall's black hole, time dilation area, where compasses and sense of direction melt. This is always no more than 5 steps from any store's exit.

This state of discombobulation might just be the case with Sherway Gardens, the mall I went to, which is laid out in a convenient figure 8 pattern with random, nonsensical blobs shooting off of it that definitely up and move at least once an hour.

For days we walked, probably in circles, and managed to find not a single chair that Betty thought was appropriate for her living room and budget.

I however, found a sofa that I loved because it's very easy to fall in love with things that aren't for sale. Ask any store owner what the most popular item in their store is and they'll always reply by holding up their personal travel mug or a stapler.

This is the sofa. Blue with mushy pea green piping and fringe. It looks like the kind of sofa the now deceased Queen would lay back and watch an episode of Ice Road Truckers on.

Other interesting mall facts

A Pottery Barn candle is $175.  

Clothing stores have their own coffee shops.

Betty will tell anyone, anytime whether or not she thinks they should buy what they're trying on.

What I bought

Yes of course I bought something. My choices were limited to my current funds so I could either walk out with a small candle from Pottery Barn or the sleeve of any jacket in Saks.

Ultimately I bought 3 articles of clothing. A pair of white jeans and a knit sleeveless shell from a store called Honey which is 2,000 square feet of froth, frill and boob tape.

I also bought this sweater which was my very first purchase from Saks Fifth Avenue.

  This is what I bought because they do not sell coveralls or anything in heather grey at Saks.

Home

After several days, the 2 shopping bags are still sitting in my hall, their contents neatly folded and covered in tissue paper to protect them from dust and my closet.

Which currently looks like this.

I feel like mall clothes expect and deserve better. I had to show them I would protect and take care of them.  This closet doesn't express that sentiment.

Proper housing isn't a concern when I buy my clothing from Costco or the grocery store.

If it makes it's way from me to the cashier via a conveyor belt, I know that article of clothing can take care of itself.

So I can't put my new purchases away until I clean out/reorganize my closet. Which I probably won't do until gardening season is over. Which means by the time I get around to providing a stable enough environment for my new dependants they'll have the permanent folds of a 1977 glove compartment map.

Which I could probably sell for a lot of money to a disoriented shopper in a Pottery Barn.