Annoyance to the Nth Degree

I hate malls. This fact must be known before I can truly rant any further, for without knowing that I hate malls, very little of what I have to say will make any sense. There is just something about Americans getting together in long walks of land, all with the sole purpose of spending money. Malls are different from say, grocery stores or simple markets. At a market, I can go inside, find what I need and be on my way. Malls, being simply so vast and crowded make it nearly impossible to find what is needed let alone, run in and out again quickly. They are designed to keep people inside, to ensure that even when one has had enough, one still has to maneuver through a labyrinth of “must-have” items simply to get to an exit. And, even if the exit has been successfully found, one is left only with a new plethora of shops, all begging for time and money. When I step into a mall, especially on a crowded Sunday, the onset of nausea is immediately felt. So many people….buying things….things they don’t need….digging through all of the sale racks….digging for hours on end….

Malls are especially irritable during the winter months because of the “coat-factor.” If one is wearing a coat designed to keep out winter’s elements, once inside a mall, the coat is no longer necessary. However, now exists the problem of what to do with said coat. Sure, it could be carried, but this said winter coat can become quite heavy over a course of time a short as 30 minutes and problem persists, with the added irritation that nothing was done about the coat when one first stepped into the mall. Some malls have coat checks for a small fee, but this option is simply not viable. Notwithstanding the fact that one’s coat may be set next to smoke chain-smoking hippie-type who might have picked up some new venereal disease while last wearing his or her coat, the problem remains of the implications of the coat check. Checking a coat denotes an ample amount of time will be spent in this mall. One is openly giving into the idea of wasting several hours of the day enclosed away from the rest of the world and spending money on wasteful items.

Middle class America constantly complains of not having it “all,” but it is the acceptance of local malls which complete the cycle. No, of course one cannot afford that new summer house on “the lake” if one spends thirty percent of one’s paycheck on nonsensical items like a brand-new wardrobe each season, or a newer plasma TV for the last room in the house that did not hold a television, or random CDs because said music is currently popular, but never will be again, or beefing up one’s DVD collection just for the sake of doing so, or spending hundreds of dollars on “special” bear that a child can “build” his or herself, or buying expensive chocolate which will end up in the exact same place as that two-dollar cheeseburger from the previous night, or paying money for commercial mass-produced art, especially when one’s house is already full of clutter…. More or less, I hate malls. They are the culmination of all things wrong with America: excess and greed.

Moving on, today I spent two hours in a wretched, overcrowded mall. I needed some new suits for upcoming interviews and apart from being thoroughly annoyed by the fact that the one suit for which I had fallen in love did not look right on me, not because of my weight, but simply that I am too short, I had what I like to refer to as an Agoraphobic Attack. All those people….digging through the 40% off racks….waiting impatiently in line at the fitting rooms….the rude Ethiopian sales woman pissing off each customer who came in path….all this waste; it felt simply overwhelming, in an angry, nauseated sort of way, and even though I was not footing the bill in this expenditure, the need to get out of the mall quickly outweighed my need for a “free” suit.

I have never understood the purpose of shopping just for the sake of shopping. In the back of my mind, I feel like a hypocrite since I have some 50 pairs of shoes, but all that can explained (in a later rant, of course). As for shopping, I have to ask why. Why? If one finds a suit that looks good and fits right and said suit costs $300, and one has $300, then buy the fricken suit! Why would someone waste precious moments of this life that is far too short anyway, digging through sale racks to find the best “deal.” If one does not have the money to spend, then don’t go shopping. It saves lives in the long run: no increased debt, no decrease of a credit score, no increase of crap that will eventually end up in some land fill, no decrease of manufacturer’s keeping their sites in this country and thus decreasing jobs available for Americans. By not spending just because one hasn’t got shit else to do, the world ends up being a happier place.

I am also annoyed by people in my house (who don’t pay a goddamn cent of rent) telling me how my house should be run, but that was just the proverbial icing on the cake, and I am sure the irritation in that direction was simply amplified by my having wasted some of the only time I have on this Earth buying stupid a suit.

Ah, Sundays….

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