Where the weak and the sick are eaten

The mall is the place where you can eat a twelve-thousand calorie cinnamon bun and then be insulted by an eighteen-year old minimum wage part-time employee when you tell them you're just looking. You can shop and then rest and then shop again. Of course the Man Book specifically says men shop until they're tired and then go home. You don't rest and then go back. We either find it in the first round or, as required by law, return home or to the nearest hardware store to recover.

The mall is mostly tranquil during the months of January to early November. The last six weeks or so leading up to Christmas resemble something similar to a slow but steady migration pattern leading to a three-week frenzied but well coordinated series of store-assaults that move quickly from one side of the mall to the other.

During the last week and a half of the holiday shopping period, few men or children can be seen in the malls. The men gather their children and then retreat to the hills where they live in camps until late Christmas Eve. This allows time for the wives and mothers to wrap the presents and then decompress and return to human form.

The War Zone

Although the mall officials welcome the activity leading to Christmas, they know that some employees won't survive the final onslaught. Most of the stores have weekend stand-by snotty teenagers waiting in the wings to replace those who will fall at the feet of the shopping herds. During the final days, the mall food court looks more like a USO station than the bright tile and neon food center. The shoppers drink mostly bottled water and eat scones, almost always on the run. The food court employees take whatever money is thrown over the counter and then take cover.

What strikes me as amazing is that, although the crowds move furiously and in large numbers, there is very little internal feuding. They seem know this will only delay them from the completed mission. They work together, in unison, as a gender.

They are superior.

We Are Determined To Survive

It never occurred to me that I might die in the mall but those were my exact thoughts as my car and I were sucked into the turn lane that would lead directly to the mall entrance. As the traffic channels in you can clearly see the exit lanes packed with cars, attempting to get back onto the main roads and away from the mall. This is not an orderly exit. It's an evacuation.

I saw the traffic jam headed for the main exits, which by the way, were jammed because the traffic lights refused to shine green but for a few seconds, allowing only two or three cars out at a time. The mall people were clearly in cahoots with the traffic engineers. At some point during a crisis, adrenalin begins to pump. People either rise to the occasion, thinking more clearly than ever before in their lives, or they just turn to Jell-O.

I was clear to me now that by design, we were never going be allowed to leave the mall. The mall security guards would soon arrive in their little Cushman scooters and heard us back inside where we would be trampled by the mob or, at the very least, sprayed with cologne over and over again. I'm not going down that way mister! My plan is to find Sears, retreat to the hardware section, grab an air compressor, nail gun and a couple of boxes of framing nails and set up a perimeter near aisle five, washers and dryers. Others will join me and we hold the fort until late Christmas Eve when the crowds begin to thin. With any luck, I will see you on the other side.

We will survive.