Just returned after about 4 hours mall-hopping, and like all good Christmas shoppers, I spent most of that time in a barely-controlled rage. A rage occasionally eased by my finding a surprising number of very cool and appropriate gifts, and occasionally brought to boiling by the appalling lack of manners, intelligence, and hygiene of the other shoppers. So let me briefly detail what I learned during my travels:
-- If I worked at Old Navy I think I would last about two days before I snapped, shaved my head, and came to work with an assault rifle. The incessant swing music blaring from the loudspeakers, all those bright blues and pinks, and all those relentlessly peppy and chirpy people who work there...they drive me mad. There were 15 customers in the store and maybe 45 headset-wearing go-getters loping after us like a pack of hyenas waiting for the first wildebeest to collapse from fatigue.
-- On FOUR separate occasions, in four separate stores, women came up to me and asked me for help, as though I was an employee. I have no idea why this is. I was wearing beat-up sneakers, jeans, and a blue turtleneck with "Penn State Football" emblazoned across it, which is hardly the uniform at Media Play. These women all happened to be past fifty, so I don't think I was getting any action. I'm a pretty unthreatening-looking guy, and each store was pretty much packed, so maybe they were desperate. I was able to help three of them, actually, though I was stumped when one woman asked me to open the watch case at Eddie Bauer.
-- Not that I go there often, but every time I walk into Bath and Body Works there is at least one girl working there I would agree to marry on the spot. This time there was a girl who looked like Julianne Moore, long red hair, skin like fresh cream, and had there been a priest and a shotgun-toting daddy I would have had no qualms about stepping up to the altar. Maybe it's the red check aprons they wear that get to me, but I get hit by thunderbolts every time I walk in the place.
-- Eddie Bauer is, without a doubt, the hottest store on Earth. No matter the season, no matter what I'm wearing, it's like stepping into a pizza oven. You'd think they'd want the store to be COLD, they're selling flannel shirts and down jackets and such, but no. I come out of there and I need to change shirts and reapply deoderant.
-- Someday, when I grow up, I want to look like the people who shop in Pottery Barn. Went there today and there were these chic women with perfect hair, perfect makup, perfect trim bodies, all wearing cashmere sweaters and buttery leather jackets and talking on cell phones to guys named "Trey". Well, the one woman I overheard was speaking to a man named Trey. Everyone was talking on cell phones in there, don't understand it. An extremely well-dressed guy in there had the narrowest eyeglass frames I've ever seen, I mean they were even narrower that the cheaters my mom used to wear for reading. To see out of them he'd have to squint all day long. Is this the fashion now, or am I making fun of someone with a serious medical condition?
-- I used to work in the one mall I visited, though the store that employed me is long gone, replaced now by a Sunglasses Hut. There's a jewelry repair kiosk right outside where I used to work, and the same three people who worked there when I was a mall employee are still there ten years later. I was feeling pretty smug about how they're still stuck in that little kiosk while I've moved on to bigger and better things, until I remembered that I just quit my last job because I hated it and I'm currently unemployed. So, cancel smug mode.
-- Why is it that I have no problems with mothers taking little boys to the ladies room, but I think fathers who take their daughters to the men's room should be put in prison? I mean, if the girl is like two years old she's not going potty by herself, is she, and if Daddy takes her to the ladies room he IS going to prison. Maybe I've seen too many men's rooms to think little girls should ever be exposed to them. Maybe there should be a separate bathroom just for fathers and young daughters. Or, maybe, I need more therapy.
-- And, finally, this: there is no feeling in the world more satisfying than walking down the aisle in a packed parking lot and noticing that there is a car slowly tailing you, waiting for you to get in your car and pull out so they can take your space, and they're following about TWO FEET behind you, and just as you get to where you think your car is parked, you realize its in the NEXT AISLE OVER, and you cut through the parked cars and leave your stalker in the lurch! It's the best feeling in the world!
Except, maybe, for making love to a beautiful woman you have genuine feelings for, and finding an empty bathroon when you really, REALLY, have to pee. So it isn't number one, but its high up on the list.
-- If I worked at Old Navy I think I would last about two days before I snapped, shaved my head, and came to work with an assault rifle. The incessant swing music blaring from the loudspeakers, all those bright blues and pinks, and all those relentlessly peppy and chirpy people who work there...they drive me mad. There were 15 customers in the store and maybe 45 headset-wearing go-getters loping after us like a pack of hyenas waiting for the first wildebeest to collapse from fatigue.
-- On FOUR separate occasions, in four separate stores, women came up to me and asked me for help, as though I was an employee. I have no idea why this is. I was wearing beat-up sneakers, jeans, and a blue turtleneck with "Penn State Football" emblazoned across it, which is hardly the uniform at Media Play. These women all happened to be past fifty, so I don't think I was getting any action. I'm a pretty unthreatening-looking guy, and each store was pretty much packed, so maybe they were desperate. I was able to help three of them, actually, though I was stumped when one woman asked me to open the watch case at Eddie Bauer.
-- Not that I go there often, but every time I walk into Bath and Body Works there is at least one girl working there I would agree to marry on the spot. This time there was a girl who looked like Julianne Moore, long red hair, skin like fresh cream, and had there been a priest and a shotgun-toting daddy I would have had no qualms about stepping up to the altar. Maybe it's the red check aprons they wear that get to me, but I get hit by thunderbolts every time I walk in the place.
-- Eddie Bauer is, without a doubt, the hottest store on Earth. No matter the season, no matter what I'm wearing, it's like stepping into a pizza oven. You'd think they'd want the store to be COLD, they're selling flannel shirts and down jackets and such, but no. I come out of there and I need to change shirts and reapply deoderant.
-- Someday, when I grow up, I want to look like the people who shop in Pottery Barn. Went there today and there were these chic women with perfect hair, perfect makup, perfect trim bodies, all wearing cashmere sweaters and buttery leather jackets and talking on cell phones to guys named "Trey". Well, the one woman I overheard was speaking to a man named Trey. Everyone was talking on cell phones in there, don't understand it. An extremely well-dressed guy in there had the narrowest eyeglass frames I've ever seen, I mean they were even narrower that the cheaters my mom used to wear for reading. To see out of them he'd have to squint all day long. Is this the fashion now, or am I making fun of someone with a serious medical condition?
-- I used to work in the one mall I visited, though the store that employed me is long gone, replaced now by a Sunglasses Hut. There's a jewelry repair kiosk right outside where I used to work, and the same three people who worked there when I was a mall employee are still there ten years later. I was feeling pretty smug about how they're still stuck in that little kiosk while I've moved on to bigger and better things, until I remembered that I just quit my last job because I hated it and I'm currently unemployed. So, cancel smug mode.
-- Why is it that I have no problems with mothers taking little boys to the ladies room, but I think fathers who take their daughters to the men's room should be put in prison? I mean, if the girl is like two years old she's not going potty by herself, is she, and if Daddy takes her to the ladies room he IS going to prison. Maybe I've seen too many men's rooms to think little girls should ever be exposed to them. Maybe there should be a separate bathroom just for fathers and young daughters. Or, maybe, I need more therapy.
-- And, finally, this: there is no feeling in the world more satisfying than walking down the aisle in a packed parking lot and noticing that there is a car slowly tailing you, waiting for you to get in your car and pull out so they can take your space, and they're following about TWO FEET behind you, and just as you get to where you think your car is parked, you realize its in the NEXT AISLE OVER, and you cut through the parked cars and leave your stalker in the lurch! It's the best feeling in the world!
Except, maybe, for making love to a beautiful woman you have genuine feelings for, and finding an empty bathroon when you really, REALLY, have to pee. So it isn't number one, but its high up on the list.
