I Hate the Mall

Ok, so, had to go to the Mall, tonight. Apparently, with several rooms full of clothes, nothing was adequate for this coming NYE. The mysteries of living with a woman, I guess.

At any rate, malls are interesting places (for observing people, that is). Some malls are more interesting than others. Tonight, we went to the Pentagon City Mall.

Now, it's been a number of months since I've been to this mall. I dunno whether it's just the whole "holiday week" thing; the economy's recovering; there' a pent up demand to spend (regardless of the means to do so); or what. But, the Pentagon City Mall was much busier than it was the last few times I was there. However, it also seems that, in addition to the mall being busier, the demographics of this mall has shifted. There were a crapton of gay (I'm assuming, but, itseemed pretty freaking obvious) black teens and men. Maybe it's a new cruising ground?

/me shrugs

Malls are great places to observe crowd dynamics. Like, how do people react when a couple of self important teenage girls decide to stop in the middle of a main access route to just jack their jaws? Well, people get cranky about it and eventually brusquely brush their ways through. Interestingly, said self-important teenage girls take exception to people not seeing how important they are and get all put out, "you could say excuse me, you know." All I could respond was, "I could, but, then again, you could find better place to flap your fucking lips at each other."

Malls are also places that offer the weirdest services at carts and kiosks. I mean, I dunno about you, but I'm not going to be able to relax all that much if I'm being massaged in a chair in the middle of the freaking concourse. I'm also pretty sure that, were I so hairy I needed to get my lip or eyebrows waxed (ok, I am hairy enough, but, fortunately, I'm not of a gender or disposition to do it), I wouldn't do it in a chair on an open concourse with hundreds of people walking by and gawking.

Every time I'm at the mall, I also notice that there seems to be a fundamental disconnect between the wares on offer and the people patronizing the mall. Every store and trendy boutique seems to carry the bulk of their inventory in sizes much smaller than the mall's average patrons. I also notice that "age-appropriate" doesn't seem to be a factor in the purchasing decisions of many people. I'm sorry, but if you're fifty years old - and look every year of it - you probably shouldn't be trying on that seethrough blouse and hoochie-skirt at Forever 21.

Malls are also places where people like to introduce their kids to various parts of adult life. One of these is, apparently, dealing with automated parking kiosks. Look, I get that kids are curious. I get that kids need to learn. However, what I don't get is why parents would think that, when the line for the kiosk is a dozen people deep, it's a good time to let a toddler struggle with the kiosk?

Speaking of parking... When the space is wide enough to double-park a Hummer (the original one, not those faux-hummers, the H2 or, worse, the H3), how do you have trouble parking your Tercel in between the goddamned lines?? Or, exactly HOW difficult is it to put your goddamned ticket into the EZ·Park automated parking turnstile and let yourself out of the lot? I mean, I might have bought the thought that the one you were at was broken. But, when I watch you switch lanes TWICE (cutting across several lanes in your ginormous SUV, each time) to struggle with another EZ·Park automated parking turnstile, I gotta start wondering whether they should have included a hockey helmet with your SUV purchase. And, lastly, why is it like some kind of bizarre rule that the person leaving through the leftmost turnstile is invariably wanting to exit out to the right (or vice versa)? I mean go around the fucking block. It's not like you can't get there from here (wherever "there" is) just because you exited the opposite direction you wanted to leave by.

Oh... Malls are also great places to bring one's inner snark right to the surface.