mall? rats!

I had to go to the mall yesterday to pick up a ring that had been resized at the jewelers. In other words: I really had no choice but to go, and that is pretty much the only way I get there. Ask my youngest. Terzo views the mall as a sort of Shangri-La, and gets very excited in a "we're going to disneyworld!" sort of way when he finds out we are on our way.

Case in point: last year, a few weeks before our trip to Disney, we found ourselves with a few hours to kill in very cold weather while our kids were at a distant birthday party, and so dropped by the nearby mall. When we took Terzo to the Disney Store, he was in awe. We realized that in his three years on the planet, he had never seen a Disney Store. We also realized that we wasted a lot of money going to Disney when we could have just dropped by the Disney Store at our mall and gotten much the same reaction.

It's funny, but I find myself getting really annoyed in the mall. I can't stand all the aimless walking and window shopping ("don't you people have a better way to spend your time?"), I get annoyed with all the teenager-aimed stores that have their windows shuttered and lights turned down so you can't see what they are selling ("like your crappy clothes made in a third-world country are that much better than anyone else's"), I can't stand all the useless junk and stuff and clutter ("I have enough of that at my own house").... in short, I just can't take the mall.

I try, I really do. I know that my wardrobe needs a little updating, as I am not the most fashion forward person. I walk into stores with every intention of trying to improve myself. But the stuff is all spread out, and I can't figure out what I want, and oh-my-goodness, are they really charging that much for a T-shirt? And I can't be bothered to try things on, as that takes too much time. So I end up throwing in the towel and shopping for clothes at BJs and the thrift store. Shh, don't tell anybody -- though I suspect they've already guessed.