My Day At the Mall

Today I went to the mall.  I have problems with malls because they're filled with people and staffed, generally, by other people.

Who was it who said hell is other people?

Anyway, at Macy's, I decided to buy a pair of shoes.  Now, Macy's and I have a strange history.  They keep sending me credit cards, and none of them ever work.  For a while there, between my wife and I, we had six different Macy's accounts.  I went in last winter with bridge hand of Macy's cards and tried to straighten things out.  Macy's straightened things out until the next time we tried to buy something, when the straightened-out account didn't work.

So Macy's, being the crafty beast that it is, opened a new account for us, giving us 15% off in the process.

Today I tried to use the new account, which -- it turns out -- has a $100 credit limit, though that first day we used it we spent way more than $100, I'm sure.  Anyway, the $100 limit under which I now labor made buying $115 shoes kind of a problem.

So my day at the mall started out with me standing at the front of a line of crabby people, trying to prove that I was worthy of $15 in additional credit risk to Macy's, which is part of Federated Department Stores, which has a market capitalization of $11 billion and sells almost $16 billion worth of stuff every year. 

After two phone calls and about 15 minutes, Macy's decided I was worth the risk to their shareholders and I was allowed to buy the shoes.  Which, just for the record, I don't really even like that much.

Feeling a certain sense of accomplishment, however, I took my bag of Macy's shoes down the mall, stopping here and there to consider buying other mall stuff.  I considered, for example, buying an LL Bean parka that would make me look like Sir Edmund Hillary.  I imagined people dressed in the parka driving their giant-sized SUVs down carefully plowed roads to the Starbucks for complicated coffee.

I considered buying a football autographed by Paul Hornung -- though I really didn't consider it much. 

And I went into Old Navy to see if they had any cheap shirts I might want to buy, which they didn't.  So I left Old Navy, at which point I was accosted by a security guard who wanted to know what I had in my bag.

Now, apparently, Old Navy has a policy about bringing bags into the store, and somehow I had sneaked through their incredible security perimeter to wander the store with an unsupervised bag in my hand.

I told the Old Navy security guard that I had Macy's shoes in the bag, and he was apparently so impressed by that that he wanted to see them.  So I showed him the shoes and he let me go.

Out in the mall, walking back toward my car, a child vomited on the floor in front of me.  For some reason, that reminded me that I wanted to buy a copy of Nirvana's "Nevermind," so I stopped at a CD store.  In the CD store, I poked around to see if there was anything else I might want to buy.  Remarkably, there wasn't.  So I went to the check-out line to pay for the Nirvana CD.  The I'm-guessing-college-aged kid working the cash register asked to look in my bag.

At first, I thought it was more fascination with the fact that I seemed to have actually been able to purchase $115 shoes from Macy's when the last of my six Macy's accounts has only a $100 limit.  But then it dawned on me: This kid thinks I might be shoplifting!  For some reason, I found that kind of complimentary, like being asked for an ID to buy beer when you're in your thirties. 

So I asked the kid about my apparently sinister security profile, and he said his manager was worried because I had spent so much time wandering around the CDs with an open bag and had only bought one thing.  He said they were tightening security in anticipation of Christmas, which is almost three months away and is thought of by non-security-related people as a time of joy and love.

When I left the CD store, I cut through Macy's again to get to my car.  As I passed through the make-up section I heard a 17-year old salesgirl recommend to an attractive, grown-up woman that she might like to try some green eyeshadow.

I may never go to the mall again.

Comments

[Married Girl]

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Okay, first, why don't you just use a nice handy MASTERCARD, silly!?! You can get a Citicard Diamond and get POINTS when you spend dough! Much better than those cheesy dept store cards!

Second... what is up with these minimum wage cashiers getting freaky over a couple of bucks?!? I spent THIRTY MINUTES at Target the other day trying to purchase some stupid little travel bags that I only thought I needed since they were marked down to under $2 each. The cashier, a kid in his early twenties, basically accused me of switching tags when they rang up at a higher price! So, not only am I a thief who switches tags, but I cleverly am able to CREATE said tags, with the correct SKU number on them and I place them on ALL of the bags so anyone can pick up these tacky little numbers at the value price. I was livid. Normally I would have just walked rather than deal with the price thing, but this guy actually said "some people switch the tags" to me. Then we had some principle going on there. I got my bags for the marked price, and after three people helping to do it, I am still PISSED - and the manager that I left a message for NEVER returned me call. Double ticked off now! Okay, sorry.... you gave me the opportunity, I vented! =)

Shopping: BAD!!!

[Dave]

Vomit makes me think of Nirvana too!

[Rodger]

Think of the fun you'd have had with the security people if your bag was filled with "Neuticles."

You know, at playoff time, I often get the urge to watch baseball games in bars. I know that bars are sometimes crowded with (dread) people, but do you ever get this urge too?

[Ron]

George Carlin had "your stuff" and "other people's stuff".