"Remember all those paybacks you still owe me?" my partner asked almost gleefully. "All those times you've dragged me off to car shows and loud drag races?"
"Yeah," I answered, "what have you got in mind? I'm trying to watch something on the TV here."
"We need a new mattress," she replied, "and I've got to get some new shoes. We're going to the mall."
"Not malling," I begged. "Isn't there something else you'd rather do to use up those paybacks? Can't you order mattresses over the phone? I'll go along with anything you pick out. Please don't take me to the mall."
"You can't get shoes over the phone. Come on, there's a bookstore that sells magazines that you can get lost in. The car's leaving in five minutes - you'd better be in it."
I don't like shopping. Never have, never will.
The first shopping mall I'd ever been in was down in southern California (where else?). I'd been sent there by the advertising agency I was working for in 1970. I was supposed to build a car for a commercial we were shooting, and one night the guy I was working with - a local - suggested we take his family and go to the shopping mall.
"They've even got an ice rink in the center. We'll have lots of fun."
Shopping centers, where there are a group of stores gathered next to one another and surrounded by square miles of parking lot, I'd come to accept. But going to an enclosed building, almost as big as the Boeing assembly structure up in Everett, for all kinds of entertainment and to buy (or to be tempted by) almost every object ever offered for sale - that's fun? Please excuse me.
We ended up watching my co-worker's youngest daughter do all sorts of swoops and spins on her ice skates, and then we browsed through store after store in search of who knows what all. I remember I went back to the motel with two new shirts, a pair of pants and a bag of popcorn, all of which I probably didn't need.
Last month, on one of our trips to the Midwest, my partner and I stopped in Minnesota to see Peter and Pia Larsen, past owners of the Upper Crust Bakery in Magnolia. They're doing fine, send greetings to all their former customers and are now living in Arlington, which, like Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegone, is located on the edge of the prairie.
An hour and a half from Arlington, yet only five minutes from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport - as a matter of fact, at the first freeway exit past the airport, in Bloomington - is the Mall of America (MOA). Guess what the number-one tourist attraction in Minnesota is.
The MOA is a combination consumer metropolis and Disneyland. Tour groups from Japan visit, airliners from Florida are chartered and people drive thousands of miles just to shop.
The second day of visiting the Larsens, we were back in the car and retracing our hour-and-a-half journey back to MOA. With me in a complimentary wheelchair and Peter pushing, we were soon going wheel-to-wheel and trading paint with kid strollers as we jostled for position among the shoppers.
The Minnesota mega-mall boasts the nation's largest indoor amusement park (Camp Snoopy), the world's largest parking ramps (seven stories each), the world's largest indoor planting of live shrubs, the world's largest indoor miniature golf course and a lot more. As anchor stores, there is a Bloomingdale's, a Macy's, a Nordstrom and a Sears. In addition, there are more than 520 specialty stores on four levels.
MOA has a public school for the offspring of its 10,000 employees. It has its own doctors, dentists, sports bars, police station, ZIP code and a nightclub district complete with an Australian beach club (in Minnesota?). There are 14 movie theaters and 46 places to eat.
Camp Snoopy, the 7-acre amusement park in the mall's center, is the first venture outside of California for the family that created Knott's Berry Farm. The roller coaster, just one of 30 rides and attractions, is outfitted with silicone wheels so that the shoppers won't be disturbed and have to raise their voices.
Why is it that malling (or is it "mauling"?) is almost looked upon as a sport among some people? They'll continue to seek out ever larger malls, charter tour buses to get there, just to spend all day lost in a frenzy of "examining merchandise."
After only a few hours of malling, for me the phrase "Shop till you drop" has taken on an entirely new promise. But the payback points are piled up on my side of the ledger. Wait until the next all-night road rally comes along.
Gary McDaniel lives in Magnolia. He can be reached at mageditor@nwlink.com.[[In-content Ad]]
