I went to the mall today with my wife, Renee and our younger son, Caleb. Our primary purpose was to pick up a ring my wife had to have repaired. Caleb and I were fine with that because it allowed us to look at some beautiful men's watches. I gave Caleb tips about fashion and function as it pertained to picking out such a fine watch. I wanted to make Caleb's eyes bug out by showing him how much these watches cost on average. Unfortunately, I was unable to do so. Apparently, all of these watches were on hold for someone. I know this because right where they usually put the price, they had apparently put someone's phone number (including the area code and country code). My wife picked up her ring then helped Caleb and me recover from our agape astonishment. This took a couple of minutes as Caleb and I kept pointing to the price tags on the watches and asking each other in unison: ARE YOU SERIOUS?
As we proceeded to go from store to store looking at this, that, and the other; we passed by numerous kiosks. This is roughly equivalent to having a county fair barker in the middle of the mall. There were people offering to give me piercings (no thanks), sell me a cell phone (no thanks), or sell me tickets to a Chinese acrobatic performance (that actually sounded pretty cool but maybe next time). I even got to witness something I had never seen before. There was a kiosk that demonstrated a woman getting an eyebrow threading. I saw the sign for this and got the image in my head of a woman (somehow) willingly getting her eyebrows sutured. However, it is apparently a grooming technique for women. I can only describe it by saying it's kind of like mowing your lawn with dental floss but only slightly less time consuming.
It was at this point that I needed to go to the men's room. This required me to pass through the food court. This made me glad that I had already eaten before I got to the mall. My eyes and nose were taunted by aromas and advertisements of tacos, cookies, Chinese dishes, burgers, and enormous slices of pizza. Any of these selections come with a beverage in a container so large, you could flush a camel's kidney's in less than two minutes. I find the offering of a beverage that size to be downright cruel because they offer this to a person then make them walk nearly a quarter mile to the nearest restroom.
I met up with my wife and son then we continued browsing. We ogled overpriced sneakers, eyeballed expensive books, and peeked at t-shirts pushing a premium price. Again, it was a nice way to spend an afternoon. If I wasn't already broke before I got to the mall, I surely would have been by the time I left.
