Hey, let’s go to the mall!

I did something almost unthinkable today, given the calendar.  I went to the mall.

One of my colleagues with whom I had just dined required Christmas presents for his wife, and being in no particular hurry to get back to work, I accompanied him.  Probably that I wasn’t driving sealed the deal.  Plus, I got excited about the possibility of being accosted by a security guard for taking photographs, which I understand they’re all pissy about anymore.

(Probably good that I wasn’t approached, ’cause I’d already planned to make trouble.  I was planning to say—dismissively, and with a hand wave for good measure—that these photos were “for my records.”)

You know, the crowd really wasn’t so bad.  The mall was perhaps two-thirds as full as I expected.

I did get an olfactory blast from the past.  You know that persistent stench of sandalwood-not-really-covering-B.O. on that hippie earth mother in college who didn’t believe in aluminum or some shit, and that’s why she didn’t wear deodorant?  Yeah, she walked by today, and it was instantly 1990 again for me.

Once I wondered if I could ever Be with an otherwise appealing woman who smelled like that, but it didn’t take long to occur to me that I never ran into such a woman who I would want to Be with even if she smelled like punkin pie.

Yeah.  So.

It was actually a pleasant junket.  I think that I was under no shopping pressure contributed tremendously to that feeling.

Possibly related posts (automatically generated):

1. Department store trauma disorder Do you remember when you were little, and your mom would take you shopping with her, and you’d wind up in the depths of one...
2. Star light, star bright… It’s 62° outside, and the windows are open. A slight breeze carries an olfactory insinuation of a thunderstorm, perhaps to the southwest. A third of...
3. On men being happier… Received this email from Saintseester this evening and thought I’d comment on it. (Original in bold; my comments follow.) WHY MEN ARE NEVER DEPRESSED: Men...
4. Playboy redux I mentioned three months ago that I had subscribed to Playboy, citing fond college memories of it, the fact that it’s almost free to subscribe...
5. The continuing adventures of Bailey and the local fauna Lea poked her head in the study last night about 11. “You smell a skunk?” “Uh…no…wait a minute…yeah, now that you mention it.  Must be...