Day 59: The Mall

The mall is the most depressing place on earth. Notice how it's always referred to as "THE" mall, as if they were all clones scattered about the country.

Greg and I had a rental car today, and I had the night off (after five hours of standing at the host stand watching people run to their cars in the below-freezing weather), so we decided to do some things we can't in Hartford. First we headed down to Manchester to eat grinders at Bill and Joanna's. The second we hit that city the old feelings of mall-related frustration came on. I try to like a lot of places, but strip-mall cities are just terrible. After our grinders we went to Target-- I had to get a lampshade and Greg had to get some canned air and power strips (He's always buying abstract things, like "power" and "air"). Christmas crap was in full bloom and I was momentarily tempted by some penguin salt-and-pepper shakers, so we had to get out of there. That's when we hit the mall. Main activities: waiting in line for Fribbles, figuring out the difference between "abercrombie" and "Abercrombie and Fitch" (two separate stores!), and generally being incredulous about people who go to malls for a hot Saturday night, self-loathing included. Had a momentary flashback of my father's deep concern that I was becoming a mall rat about twelve years ago. Then had a crisis: was I a mall rat in middle school? Unsure. It was New Jersey in the mid-nineties. Mallrats was a popular movie at the time.

We were in the mall to kill an hour before the pinnacle of our night-in-Connecticut-with-a-car: blockbuster film on the big screen. I have an above-average love of being in a crowded movie theater. Even better, this was the opening weekend of an insanely popular movie about teen love between a vampire and a surly non-vampire, so the place was packed with energy. The kids in the theater were plenty rowdy and lusty. They had probably just come from the mall, too, but now their energy was centered around a story, instead of the deadening experience of shopping. Somehow, it was so much better. Greg wasn't even too mad at me for making him see a terrible teen vampire movie.

The whole night was, in retrospect, a suburban teenage date. I'm glad we did it once, but I definitely do not want a car.