Here in the land of 10,000 lakes we have many of another thing: Malls. Now, I have no idea nor am I going to research where we stand in malls per capita versus the rest of the country. But in the places I have lived and visited it seems that Minnesota has more than most.
We have the Mall of America, (the largest in the US)
There’s also Southdale, which was the first indoor shopping mall of all time.
I spent many weekends at the MOA in my youth with little cash in my pocket, just the knowledge that if I was in the Mall I was going to be having a spectacular time. And I did have a great time. A few years back The Mall of America decided that after 6pm no one under the age of 16 was allowed to be there without parental supervision. I mentioned this to my mother and she said, Well yeah, parents were just dropping their kids off for the day and they would just hang out.”
To which I replied, “Yeah, it was you mom. The mall made new rules because of us.” But I never got into trouble in any way. Me and my friends were never the shoplifting types. We just, I am sure, were kinda annoying to the patrons with full wallets.
Something about the smell of the mall gets to me in a good way. I can still wander around a mall for hours and try on clothes that I have no intention of buying and browse stores I have never spent a dime in and I am happier when I am done than when I walked inside. I don’t need to buy anything. I still just need to hang out.
I was at Sounthdale yesterday. After my quick trip to actually purchase something I headed for a coffee shop and stood in line behind an elderly man who was picking up a sandwich out of the refrigerated display case. He then took the sandwich and place it into his coat pocket and turned to get out of line and walk away. He saw me as he was leaving the line and we had the following conversation with our eyes:
Klepto: Whoops! I guess you saw me just steal a turkey and swiss on a croissant.
me: Yes. I did, that was weird, whattheheck?!
Klepto: I know you saw me steal, but I am going to take it anyhow
me: Whatever dude, you’re old.
Klepto: Ok then, get out of my way so I can go sit on the bench outside of Hot Topic and eat this while I look at the 15 year old girls with multiple piercings until my wife is done picking out matching hand towels at JC Penny’s
Me: (moving out of the way) Have at it…
As I stepped aside so the old man could make his grand getaway and finish out his misdemeanor I noticed a security guard passing by. He was really tall. No wait, he was not tall.
He was riding a Segway and had a helmet on and he was traveling at 1/2 mph. He had been passing by at the exact moment that the old man stole the sandwich. But he saw nothing because he was too busy trying to steer between all the chairs and tables.
Had he seen the man lifting the sandwich I am sure he would have done the same exact thing that I did.
The mall rules all.
The Pilver 
The “eye” conversation in this blog is a perfect example of the sort of thing that makes your writing brilliant….
…IMHO, of course.
Two questions about the picture of the security guard: 1) Is that THE security guard you saw that day, or just a random picture of a security guard on a Segway? and 2) Is he wearing a hair-met? Because that would be awesome.
That picture is the result of a Google image search. The guard I saw looked nearly identical. A hairmet would have been perfect.
Segway’s are AWESOME!!! Do you watch Arrested Development? Every time Gob shows up on his, I pee my pants laughing. Too funny. It’s hard to look cool on a Segway.
“Something about the smell of the mall gets to me in a good way. I can still wander around a mall for hours and try on clothes that I have no intention of buying and browse stores I have never spent a dime in and I am happier when I am done than when I walked inside. I don’t need to buy anything. I still just need to hang out.”
I know that you’re not talking about buying stuff left and right or whatever but that sentence still depressed me a bit…our generation has been raised on commercialism and corporations. But hey, what are we gonna do? it’s not THAT bad is it?