Anthills... Molehills... Malls...

    I don't like malls. I don't think I ever really liked them, to be honest. I think I thought I was supposed to like them, because I was a teenage girl growing up in America. That's just societal math 101. 

    Malls are a great idea... In theory. Put a variety of stores all together, under one roof, for easy, get out and go shopping. That's something I can get behind, I fucking hate shopping, get out and go is exactly what I want. But here's where they went wrong, here's where capitalism went too damn far: they made reasons for people to stay.

   So here comes me, thinking "I gotta hit three store for four different things, and a gift, I've memorized the layout, I'll be out of here in 30."

    NO.

    WRONG.

    WRONGWRONGWRONG.

    The world suddenly feels a little too big and a little too small all at once when you enter a mall. An indoor mall manages to be huge and overwhelming, while also bringing you in such close quarters with humanity that you can feel yourself in a perpetual cringing hunch as you try to drag yourself through the crowds with minimal contact. Horrifying.

    I'm an extravert, since childhood I've liked talking to people, and my shyness was almost no existent by the time I hit age ten.. I tended to charm myself in or out of situations... It's only now, as I've gotten older, and perhaps more surly, that I realize I am a selective extravert when it comes to actually dealing with people. In a mall I want as much anonymity as possible and I want to deal with a total of 0 (zero) people. The only reason I'm ever in a mall is because I need to pick up one thing I can't get anywhere else or I need to knock out a bunch of shopping at once. I want to be like a ghost, all that's left behind is maybe the energy I shed trying to escape the hellhole I desperately just tried to crawl out of. 

    But in a lot of these places where these monstrosities sit... There isn't much going on. This is it. Mallrats range in ages from four months to one foot in the grave. And they'e here for the indoor playground, they're here for the spa, they're here for a meal and drinks, they're here for a movie, they're here for pottery painting for God sakes. All of this is provided so that one could spend an entire day in there and feel somewhat fulfilled (one would imagine anyways). But I think most of the time spent isn't even in these places. Most of the time is spent triangulating, or swarming, depending on how you look at it. A quiet and shallow flood of people going in and out with the tide considering where to go and what to do. Thousands of options, limited maps, and no real or desperate purpose. That's what malls do. They encourage you to enter with a promise of some sort of "experience" and then they shock you with a paralyzing realizations that you don't know where the fuck you are, which way is up, and which escalators go which way.

    Suddenly it's the pure endurance from Survivor mixed with a the problem solving of a Saturday New York Times Puzzle. People lose time in there, myself included, just trying to get through. Distractions and obstacles turning you around in hopes you'll buy more, window shop more. Your list, the map you took a cellphone picture of, your natural sense of direction, if you're so lucky, suddenly mean absolutely nothing, as stores change and tents of nicknacks and hair extensions pop up, and in-store events wield lines like sabers five stores down.

    The worst is that food courts aren't actually a thing in the one mall I find myself at. Food stuffs are sprinkled through out every inch of the mall, crumbs and grease spots falling around me like locusts in a medieval depiction of the plague. Every few steps someone trying to offer me a free sample of tea only to be met with a look that sits on the line between deer in the headlights and rabid raccoon under your house. No I don't want your tea, I don't even want your artisan chocolate, I just want to pick up my organic shampoo and a pair of slacks for my partner and leave. Trust me, both of us will be happier if I complete this mission with minimal interference. It's not you, it's me... And the rest of humanity. 

    Nothing about the process appeals to me. When my friends went to shop for prom dresses I sat outside the mall with some busking musicians for an hour, I'm just not built for this kind of thing. If you ask me, the whole idea of trying on clothes under florescent lights that make you look sallow and somehow distort your body into various lumps and corners should be deemed a form of cruel and unusual punishment. They should provide a therapist in every dressing room to deal with the fallout of returning a stack of clothing. In the mall with a thousand people always in line for the dressing room, walk of shame as your drop everything off has a whole new meanings. Hell, I've taken to memorizing where I took clothing from and returning it myself just to avoid the nonexistent stares in reaction to my failures. 

    As a customer, a consumer, a reluctant participant, I can only imagine how the people who actually work in these glorified anthills feel. So shout out to them, the true heroes. While we're at it, shout out to all the brave souls who work at airports.

    And after all this, there I am trying to find a corner of sanity, locating my fire exits, at least once a month. Most of the time coming out while popping Aibournes like candy and checking my pulse. Sometimes sprinting to the car and locking myself in before anyone can stop me. Always sighing an exhausted "yikes" while driving away, and not looking back.