At The Mall
Today, I went to the mall. I hate the mall. The mall is infected with demons that bring my soul to a dark, evil place. Its bascially an incubator for the seven deadly sins. When I am in the mall, I am filled with envy, loathing, wrath, lust, gluttony, sloth, anger, and all those nasty emotions, mainly because some angsty-looking Abercrombie model is towering 14 feet over my head and I know I can't afford the ugly-ass jeans he's not wearing, because he's naked. Some tarted up 14 year old with sparkly eyeshadow and a years worth of eyeliner is verbally molesting her cell phone while toying with a price tag that I'm pretty sure has the first 9 digits of pi written on it, with a typo where the decimal should be. I'm only marginally joking around here. But I was in a good state of mind today, and I had to get some gifts for some people, so...to the mall I went.
Instantly I was surrounded by roving, unwashed masses that stared with cow eyes at equally vacuous window displays. Bored-looking Victoria's Secret salesgirls feigned chipperness to ask me if I wanted to open a store credit card with them. Actually, it was more like: "So Miss? If you open a credit card with our store? Today? You could save, like, 10%? Do you want to do that?" And since only one of those sentences was actually a question, I just politely declined on basic grammatical principal.
In the Aveda store, a sprite-like boy with hair that looked like he styled it with Valvoline questioned my choice of the "Brilliant" brand shampoo. "Its a really deep clean; I didn't like it," he claimed. From his piecey, matted hairdo I could garner that he didn't like anything cleaning him too much. I just smiled and purchased my $11.00 bottle of not enough nice-smelling shampoo.
In the Hollister store, I lasted only about 30 seconds, long enough to register three things: 1) OH aaagghhhh nononono! Kill it kill it! 2) That girl has a nice starfish necklace, its sparkly and 3) Exit door is that way. It was later by the Watch Stop I realized what had frightened me was the seemingly neverending line of OC high school girls queued up at the register. The atomic weight of their acrylic nails, lip gloss and hair extensions was enough to set my own molecular structure on an unstable course.
In J. Crew I began coveting...and coveting and coveting and coveting. I'm an unapologetic preppy and nobody does unabashed preppiness like J. Crew. But since I was there for gifts for others, I hung my head and walked out, with a tender touch of the cashmere scarves on my way out the door. Another day, my garment-dyed, Italian-milled lovelies. Another day.
In Hot Topic, I wistfully stared at the racks of Manic Panic hair dye, fondly remembering my halcyon days of college, when I could color my hair purple and let my skin go ghostly white and no one so much as blinked. It was so natural on me that my own mother said "Wow, that color actually looks natural on you." My own mother people. And here at the transitional age of 25, I was told my some higher-ups at work that if I so much as put a single strand of purple hair on my head I can kiss my professional aspirations good-bye. I guess I should be happy I had those days when I did. Still, I miss my lavender locks. They were pretty. I got a gift card for a more fortunate friend who can afford to be more creative with her own body.
I marched around valiantly, going from one store to the next, occasionally purchasing an item to be wrapped and unwrapped at a later date. But after a few hours in the trenches, I had to leave. I can only handle so much enclosed merriment and materialism. Once my friends ventured into the Apple store (a place created for the sole purpose of making you feel inadequate with all the crappy, no-good, very old technology you pathetically own, you miserable failure) I knew it was my time to go home. Overall it was a good run to the mall, as far as mall runs go. Today, for the most part, I defeated my shopping demons.
Except for the ones in California Pizza Kitchen. I thought the wild mushroom pizza woud be innocent enough, but I trust my stomach, and right now I know its not lying when it says "ooooh....no good. No good."
Instantly I was surrounded by roving, unwashed masses that stared with cow eyes at equally vacuous window displays. Bored-looking Victoria's Secret salesgirls feigned chipperness to ask me if I wanted to open a store credit card with them. Actually, it was more like: "So Miss? If you open a credit card with our store? Today? You could save, like, 10%? Do you want to do that?" And since only one of those sentences was actually a question, I just politely declined on basic grammatical principal.
In the Aveda store, a sprite-like boy with hair that looked like he styled it with Valvoline questioned my choice of the "Brilliant" brand shampoo. "Its a really deep clean; I didn't like it," he claimed. From his piecey, matted hairdo I could garner that he didn't like anything cleaning him too much. I just smiled and purchased my $11.00 bottle of not enough nice-smelling shampoo.
In the Hollister store, I lasted only about 30 seconds, long enough to register three things: 1) OH aaagghhhh nononono! Kill it kill it! 2) That girl has a nice starfish necklace, its sparkly and 3) Exit door is that way. It was later by the Watch Stop I realized what had frightened me was the seemingly neverending line of OC high school girls queued up at the register. The atomic weight of their acrylic nails, lip gloss and hair extensions was enough to set my own molecular structure on an unstable course.
In J. Crew I began coveting...and coveting and coveting and coveting. I'm an unapologetic preppy and nobody does unabashed preppiness like J. Crew. But since I was there for gifts for others, I hung my head and walked out, with a tender touch of the cashmere scarves on my way out the door. Another day, my garment-dyed, Italian-milled lovelies. Another day.
In Hot Topic, I wistfully stared at the racks of Manic Panic hair dye, fondly remembering my halcyon days of college, when I could color my hair purple and let my skin go ghostly white and no one so much as blinked. It was so natural on me that my own mother said "Wow, that color actually looks natural on you." My own mother people. And here at the transitional age of 25, I was told my some higher-ups at work that if I so much as put a single strand of purple hair on my head I can kiss my professional aspirations good-bye. I guess I should be happy I had those days when I did. Still, I miss my lavender locks. They were pretty. I got a gift card for a more fortunate friend who can afford to be more creative with her own body.
I marched around valiantly, going from one store to the next, occasionally purchasing an item to be wrapped and unwrapped at a later date. But after a few hours in the trenches, I had to leave. I can only handle so much enclosed merriment and materialism. Once my friends ventured into the Apple store (a place created for the sole purpose of making you feel inadequate with all the crappy, no-good, very old technology you pathetically own, you miserable failure) I knew it was my time to go home. Overall it was a good run to the mall, as far as mall runs go. Today, for the most part, I defeated my shopping demons.
Except for the ones in California Pizza Kitchen. I thought the wild mushroom pizza woud be innocent enough, but I trust my stomach, and right now I know its not lying when it says "ooooh....no good. No good."
posted by The Semi-Pro Chef at Friday, December 16, 2005
5 Comments:
you are a breath of fresh air. I enjoyed cruising through your blog and reading. You are talented well read and insightful. I'll be back this may be my new favorite ride.
Every day a new picture of you - or so it seems.
Hmmmmmmmmmm....
I like my camera and I love photoshop. :)
So then, are the eyes real, ah, as in your eyes, or is this just another bit a magic from photoshop?
Those are my eyes. All I did was use the "poster edges" filter and add a targeted light source to create the gradient light rings over my face. But yeah, those are my huge orbs.
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