I Survived The Mall

I had to ("briefly) endure a shopping mall again today in order to buy a gift for Jane's grandfather. My fault, for I should have purchased it when Jane dragged me to that mall last weekend on our "get the relatives "presents sojourn. Anyway, I did survive using the typical male mall strategy. That is, to go for a specific item, find it, purchase it, and then get out of town before the calvary comes.

As malls go, the one here at Clackamas Town Center is new and very nice, but like most malls it could be dropped anywhere in the U.S., given the uniformity of the stores and the same look of it that all malls possess. Funny thing about this one though, is a mall food court vender that I think reflects the lack of interest in good food here in Oregon. There is a food court outlet there called 'Cajun Express', allegedly a seller of "Cajun food".

But I think the Cajuns in Oregon must be from Beijing, China, not from Louisiana. The food served at that place looks a identical to the food sold at another outlet a few meters away, Panda Express. It sure looks to me like the Cajun food at Cajun Express is the same as what is offered at Panda Express (maybe they cook it at Panda and express it over to Cajun Express?), albeit with Cajun names applied to one and Chinese names to another. Rest assured I have no desire to do a taste test to confirm my suspicion.

Since it was early in the morning when I went to this mall (early is great for avoiding crowds and getting prime parking spaces) but despite that I was able to do my second favorite thing when in a shoping mall (the first is eat the junk food... like....Aunty Annie's pretzel sticks, Pumpkin Jamaba Juice drinks, and a few others make "mall-ing" bearable). My second favorite activity when in the mall is people watching. Malls are always good for that.

I know the mall goers who see there are probably are thinking smarmy things about me (a little paranoia at the mall helps) as I stroll along the corridors of the mall, so I have to evaluate them too. One talent I do posses is that of face reading. Show me a face and I can tell what the person's emotion is at the first moment I see it. Some are easy to read, for example, the chagrined and almost constipated look of males being tortured as they are dragged behind their ladies on the mall adventure. Others are a little harder to read, kids for instance, because children do not often put on obvious false faces like adults do.

Since it was morning time and they are supposed to be in school, the teens were scarcely in sight today. But when they are I see the hormonal surge that malls bring about in that odd age group. If there is a teen equivalent to a pick-up bar it is the mall. No wonder kids like to hang out at the mall so much. Instead of teens most of the kids I saw were infants and toddlers pushed in those goofy looking mall transports for that age group or form the ubiquitous stroller that every new parents seemingly is required by law to have. If someone pushed me around in one of those I would not mind being at a mall, yet no one has offered to yet.

There is another look I see on faces at the mal, this one of older mall denizens. It is the "why I am I here" look, and it is found even among some women. It makes me question why Americans, and most other people in other laces now, have adopted the mall shopping modality for buying. I far prefer stand alone stores I can drive to because there is not the pressure nor distracting stimuli that malls give off. I wonder how much of the mall purchase is impulse buying from subtle pressure. I would think far more impulse buying happens at a mall than at a stand alone shop.

Though I won't, I could go on here and carry on even more about "nothing", but I think that if I had to be tortured with a mall visit today you should be tortured reading about it. Happy shopping!