Truth, As Learned At The Mall

Steffie is working at a local mall this summer. I think the job is going well and I’m sure she’s happy to have the extra cash.

This afternoon she wanted Helaine’s assistance with a purchase, so we headed there as she was getting off work.

They’re giving something away, right? The parking lot was jammed to the gills. We cruised the aisles of parked cars like scavengers, following unsuspecting folks we thought were heading home.

That’s a terrible strategy. People walk a path a car could never take! So, you slowly follow someone down the row until they duck between cars to another row. You’re out of luck.

If anyone knows of a properly researched mall parking strategy, please let me know. If not, it’s a doctoral thesis waiting to be published!

I’m a little bit off my game because I sliced the tip of my left thumb. It was an accident yesterday as I played with my monopod on the beach. It turned into one of those two Band-Aid cuts, with one vertical and another horizontal to hold the first Band-Aid in place.

I never realized how important my left thumb had become here in the 21st Century. I’m left handed. So, it’s my dialing thumb. It’s also the remote control thumb. It’s the thumb I don’t want expanded to twice its regular size by virtue of the Band-Aid. I’m clumsy enough already without pushing three buttons when I want to hit one.

You might be saying, “Wow Geoff – you are weird. You actually took a photo of your thumb in the mall.”

Yes, it’s true. But that’s only because a mall isn’t the proper place for a guy. It was my way of staying busy. What’s there for a guy to do at the mall anyway?

Actually, I can answer that. I had a watch… part of my vast “it’s not what it looks like” collection of watches… that needed a battery. I went to the little watch/battery kiosk. There a very nice man tried desperately to pry off the screw on back!

I told him three or four times. Each time he responded I was wrong. I was right.

Luckily he didn’t screw up the watch. He also overcharged me for the battery.

After the watch incident, I went to the only place in the mall vaguely attractive to men, the bookstore. This mall has an immense Borders books. I went in and thumbed through the magazines.

I like looking at the photography and computer magazines, but that’s just a small part of the collection. Correct me if I’m wrong, but any category of magazine content worth doing, is worth doing in 5-10 different titles!

I did catch a glimpse of Make Magazine, from O’Reilly (the geek, not political, O’Reilly). Make is for people who like tinkering and building things. These people are ‘hackers’ in the original computer oriented meaning. I wish I had enough manual dexterity to join in.

After the magazines I scurried over to the computer books. I was actually looking for a little O’Reilly reference book to help me with my websites. I’m guessing, at $9.95, it’s the cheapest book there. At 128 pages, it’s got to be the thinnest computer book there.

Does Borders pay to be in the mall or does the mall pay them to come and placate guys? I know the answer, but a case could be made to pay Borders – it really could.

I was on the floor, sitting in the ‘sad husband’ position you so often see in mall bookstores, when my cellphone rang. It was Steffie. She and Helaine realized we had two cars. I could leave if I wanted to.

And I did just that.

4 thoughts on “Truth, As Learned At The Mall”

  1. Conclusion of study in case you don’t have time:

    Park in the first place you can find open- and walk. Over your lifetime of parking, it will save you time.

    Don’t tell anyone.

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