Mallrats

I had to do some shopping today, which meant going out into the masses of…you people. I’m not a big fan of that, if I’m being honest because I’ve found, in general, on average, most people are complete and total fucktards.

But my lil baby niece is turning 1 year old tomorrow, and some loud and obnoxious presents from her favorite uncle and Godfather were going to be needed, so out I set to the local shopping mall.

I hate the shopping mall with the fiery passion of a thousand suns and don’t undertake a quest there without good reason, but having assessed this situation as one worthy the trip, I drove there and was immediately reminded one of the reasons why I so vehemently hate the mall and it’s denizens: Parking.

I’m never really amazed, per se, at the complete idiocy possessed by people who somehow manage to attain drivers licenses, but I am in a constant state of awe over their complete ineptitude as drivers, their complete and total lack of common sense, common courtesy and the unwavering and seemingly undeterred belief that they alone are driving there and they alone have the right of way.

So, after almost being hit at least 4 times, after flipping off at least 7 separate drivers and after having almost lost my life (or a few limbs) on 12 occasions over the distance of approximately 20 yards worth of parking lot I drove through, I got lucky and found a space.

Score!

Those deterrents were well worth it considering the primo parking space I was able to find on a Saturday at the mall. Of course, this was just the beginning of my odyssey—I hadn’t, after all, even made it through the door yet.

I did, however, make it through the door and into the mall when I was immediately reminded of another reason why I hate it there so much: The stink.

People who go to shopping malls must not have the ability or the desire to bathe because the stink of a thousand people reached my nose as soon as I opened the door and kept me on the verge of tears and possibly passing out for the duration of my time there.

You’d think that people who like to shop, would be able to easily find time in their busy schedules to pick up a little soap and deodorant, but such was not the case on this day, or any other day I’ve ever been to the mall for that matter.

Using my Jedi mind powers, I tried my best to block out the stench and proceeded down the escalator into the throng of humanity that is are the Saturday mall shoppers.

Had I been naïve, I may have thought the escalator had transported me to another country, but I know better than that. I was still here at home in the good old USA, it’s just that no one here speaks English anymore. Polish and Spanish seem to be the languages of choice at my local mall and speaking neither, I was blissfully ignorant of most of the names I was called as I mercilessly bumped into any fucktard who wasn’t paying attention to where they were going and walked into my path.

You see, I don’t get to the malls often, but when I do, I’m constantly posed with the problem that really explains the whole driving nightmare I have on the way into the mall. These people can’t even seem to manage to walk in a normal way—that they cannot drive seems to make perfect sense.

Families walking eight across, people talking on phones and not paying attention to where they might be going, people unsure of where they’re going, people in no rush at all walking agonizingly slow, people in too much of a hurry darting through way too fast, it’s an absolute nightmare to which I’ve found only one reasonable solution.

I pretend I’m a tank and run over anyone, or anything that gets in the way. I’m a pretty big dude after all and while normally, common courtesy and manners are normally my own personal way, I have learned to abscond from those in favor of getting to run ignorant people over when at the mall.

I just try to look as mean and intimidating as possible, bump into anyone who may be walking like an idiot and happily fail to understand the things that they yell at me afterwards. It’s not nice, but it’s one of the few petty pleasures I get when shopping, and I will not navigate a mall any other way.

So, to the chorus of many foreign swear words being tossed my way, I head off to my destination at the far end of the mall, the Target store where I plan to buy up as much of the toy section as I can carry. That’s when I really start looking around and taking in some of the most breathtaking views known to man.

There was the guy in spandex shorts, a Dallas Cowboys football jersey and a leather vest with the beer belly that needed it’s own zip code. There was the old man wearing plaid shorts and a plaid shirt of two distinctly different and forever fighting patters. There were the plethora of pudgy women who didn’t think twice about showing off body parts that truly would have been better left in hiding. There were the teeny bopper girls dressed up like hookers and the wannabe suburban thugs dressed in oversized clothes and shorts that left no doubt about the fact that they were wearing boxers today.

You just can’t beat the people viewing at a nice mall where no one speaks English, as you’re plowing through unsuspecting fucktards, through the stench of sweaty humanity!

Eventually, I made it to Target, which, I have to say, smelled marginally better than the mall without, but the sudden nasal delight was ruined when I got to the toy section and much to my dismay, I realized that the picked over, poor selection they had was not going to offer the kinds of treasures my little niece so richly deserves.

Foiled again, shopping mall, you dastardly fiend! There really wasn’t anything I could do, this particular mall has no specific toy store and there really wasn’t anyplace else I could go that I thought would have a better selection, so I put the tank in drive and reluctantly plowed my way back through it all to get back to my car, survived countless near death experiences and several more incomprehensible verbal beratings before I finally pulled out into traffic and the relative safety of the rest of humanity (if only so, when compared to mouth breathers at the mall).

The moral of the story my friends is a simple one. If you ever have to buy your 1 year old niece a birthday present, don’t be an asshole and try to do it at the mall, drive the extra 10 miles and go to the local Toys R Us. Sure, it’s not perfect there either, but that’s a story for another day.

Suffice it to say that it’s well worth the extra gas it takes to get there though. And that, is all I have to say about that.