random thoughts – Day 1,711 – (Friday) – malling it

It was a vacation day, and as usual, I spent a chunk of the day on personal care. Today’s exciting appointment was with the eye doctor for the annual checkup. The eye doctor is located in the Pheasant Lane Mall, which is a blessing/curse scenario. The blessing is there is usually plenty of parking. There have been years when my appointment fell on Black Friday or one of the weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The place would be packed and there would be the Santa photo setup and lots of tiny tots in their tiny tot best outfits. Definitely a curse.

Decorations at the mall.

There were some white holiday decorations cascading from the upper level and very few people in the mall at 10:30. This was great for me, but probably not a dream for the retailers.

Every year, I forget where the eye doctor is located, so I arrive early to accommodate getting lost. During the search, I was hijacked by a clerk in the doorway of a shop. He complimented my shoes (Madden Girl loafers) and asked if he could take a picture to send to his mother. Ummmmm, weird, but I played along. He asked if I was “from around here,” which seemed irrelevant, and handed me a packaged alcohol wipe. Apparently I looked to be in need of sanitation. Then, he took out the big guns and tried to get me to sample some eye wrinkle cream and was surprised I hadn’t heard of the product because “It’s all over TV.” Um, ok.

I was completely confused when he told me to “open the windows.” My confused, “huh?” had him repeating it. He gestured that he meant for me to take off my glasses, but by then, I just wanted out. I looked at his colleague, who was casually leaning on the front window and she made a face that seemed like “I know, right? This is whack-a-doodle.” By then, I was making excuses that I needed to get to an appointment, and bolted. In what turned out to be the wrong direction.

By the time I finally found a mall directory, I was at the opposite end of the mall to where I needed to be. The storefront I needed was about three or four doors down from wrinkle cream guy, and had l looked to the right when I entered the mall, I would have known that. I backtracked quickly along the opposite side of the upper level to avoid the sample clerk, but sure enough, he saw me and waved enthusiastically. I waved back halfheartedly, imagining him thinking, “yeah, right, an appointment.”  and kept walking.

After my appointment, where there was no waiting and I was out in about 20 minutes, instead of shopping in some of the new stores there, I left the mall. There was no energy left to continue avoiding the wrinkle cream sample pusher. In retrospect, I blew the ideal shopping opportunity for the office gift swap. The best part is that now I don’t have to go back to the mall for another year.