I’d love to tell you this is one of those sad stories where the poor ol’ husband gets dragged from shop to shop against his will. That’s not really the case and it wouldn’t be fair to depict it as such.
Ah, but think all of the creative avenues I could pursue with today’s post if only…
Alas, that’s not the way it happened and I want to be honest. So, I’ll take the direct approach and just tell you, I went to an outlet mall each of the last two Saturday’s.
There, I said it.
Last Saturday’s shopping excursion was really more of a side-trip. We stopped at one of the outlet malls between Farragut and Nashville and the goal was fairly simple. We needed to exchange a holiday gift: a pair of pants. The mall was nice-enough and the exchange was fairly routine.
It’s the transaction from the week before that still leaves me scratching my head.
This was for another gift exchange and the mall was a bit closer to home. The whole experience was surreal. Here’s how it went.
Lisa and I hit the ground running that morning. We wanted to beat the crowd – an ironic statement as you’ll learn – so we grabbed breakfast and headed to the destination. I had done some recon the night before and learned the store would open at 9 a.m. We were in the building a few minutes after.
We walked into the store where Lisa wanted to make her exchange and immediately noticed a 3:2 employees:shoppers ratio (and I don’t even really count as a shopper). While Lisa was completing her transaction, I told her that I was going to walk around a little and, as I did, a sad reality struck me.
Lisa’s shoe shoppe was the only active business we saw in the facility. As I walked down the concourse, a public address announcement greeted me and all the other shoppers and welcomed us to the facility. You get the feeling it was a sad attempt by the automated voice to reach out to people who just weren’t there.
As I rounded the corner and headed through the food court, I did find another fellah. He was sipping his coffee and reading the morning paper. Maybe he just wanted to find a quiet spot.
He found it.
The food court, itself, was an interesting study. There were several tables lined up in a perfectly symmetrical pattern. The furniture was ringed by numerous former eateries; empty caverns echoing the deep baritone of our P.A. ‘narrator.’ The only available food was found in three sad venting machines at the end of the row. One for food; one for drink. I didn’t get close enough to see what was behind Door #3.
By the time I strolled back to the shoe shoppe, Lisa was wrapping things up. The workers were telling us about the great sale they were having. They also told us they hoped to move to another mall. If we were to buy more, they’d have to less to move.
Unfortunately for them, we just left the shoppe with the exchanged pair of shoes.
As we excited the mall, the narrator greeted us again and Christmas music began to play. I guess no one had bothered to tell him that the holidays were over.
JG
Originally posted 1/8/2014
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