I must have fallen asleep. I open my eyes and see the ocean going by the left side of the bus. We arrive at the Burlington Mall… All those times we drove there and the bus would have brought us there if we just stayed on it. I call Alissa to let her know I am here. She’s tired and says she’ll pick me up but her idea of a good night is getting a six-pack and going to the movies. I’m broke but I guess I’m fine with it. While we talk I walk around the Mall. Lots of restaurants on the 9th floor.
She’s on her way. We hang up.
I walk into this home decor store, must be Pottery Barn, and I see this glass container that would make a cool instrument if I just flipped it over. The clerk sees me farting around with it and gives me his opinion on other items that would be fun to carry around - that is they make a cool sound but are much more portable than this glass jar.
Now there are two girls here picking up various things and trying to play them. They’ve got a wicker shelf with 9 drawers; it that makes a nice sound I suppose. Amongst them is this shallow square box with wooden sides and the top and bottom covered in red canvas. On one end, under the fabric, are keys. I do my little autonomous rattle of the fingers that lets out this pleasant organ squelch. I can see how this would have a lot of bang for the buck.
I flip it around, not too much that I invoke a sales pitch. It’s got no apparent power source. I think it draws the power from air pulling through the fabric. I’ll take one but I should be going to meet my friend.
I go to meet Alissa. The one end of the mall is a big ship and I’m among other commuters as we cross a bit of ocean. There are pillows all around the bases of these huge windows and people are seated amongst them, some drinking white wine, reading magazines, relaxing, in a sort of tense looking suspicious way. There’s a lot of spray from the stormy waves but the boat doesn’t rock. We get there soon enough.
I get there and meet up with Alissa, Chris also happens to be here. We head into the mall. We go in to find that there’s a big space that’s like the outside in that there is grass on the ground but the glass walls we passed on the way in and the roof high over our head gives it away. We walk through another door and we’re in a glass hallway that is quite narrow. This angles around and through another door we get into the mall.
It’s a lot nicer than the Burlington Mall. There are quite a few stores placed up or down flights of stairs. There’s quite a few mall employees in character costumes - one happens to be dressed as Gomez Adams.
We walk around a few times before we move on.
I decide to go out for a smoke and make my way through the crowd in the winding hall and back outside. Oh right, it’s not outside and you can’t smoke here. There’s a funny sign that says, “Got your cigarette and lighter? You’re in the wrong place!” I laugh and move on through the doors to the real outside. It turns out that there is much more to this place that I had thought. Chris and Alissa meet up with me and we start to walk around. There’s a big food court area along the outer edge of the mall, we move on and somehow get incorporated back inside with the crowds who are thinning out a bit.
We walk by a nice windowed area overlooking the ocean. Then the walls shoot up and there’s an interactive shrine that’s basically a big touch screen, there are some little kiosks around playing various bits about some unheard of religion. Its amazing what passes for interactive. Standing around a kiosk that spits out the same thing time and time again, thats interactive?
We keep walking, I utter a holy shit under my breath as the wall goes back into the floor to reveal glass overlooking the ocean again. But that’s not it. On the left there’s a giant candy ribbon shaped wall that is at a slight tilt, one that people are climbing to get upstairs. It’s got to be 100ft.
HEELLL NO. I’ll keep walking till I find an elevator.
We do. It’s getting a bit weird now - the wall gives way to open air and we’re outside the mall. Though if you look back it’s clearly visible the top parts that are up a hill a bit more look like your average giant barn amongst its neighbors. A quiet neighborhood. There’s a part of the water that has even been filled in so that you’re really walking on one inch of water but it looks like you could be Jesus. We head back around the curve of the building.
I guess we’re looking for a gift. It’s apparent that one of those cool musical home items I was playing with would be good. We head into Macy’s or something.
It’s crazy because this mall has anything imaginable here - there’s even a Petsmart somewhere as I keep seeing bags for it.
We head in. It’s all room displays that we keep walking through just to find another room display. We walk around the fake bed and find another fake bed surrounded by other matching items. This goes on but we can’t seem to find anything like that Pottery Barn stuff. It keeps getting deceptively more and more similar so we keep going but once I think it’s going to be just around the corner we find some tacky plastic storage thing instead of our much desired wicker.
posted Jul 1st, 2008 @ 10:23 am