CREDIT: STOCK IMAGES
There is nothing like going to the mall and joining all the other mindless zombies.

I drove to Masonville Mall the other day, you know the one, that skylight-lined cathedral of materialism filled with the answers to all of life's questions. That spiritual bastion dedicated to holey pockets, Emo gangs, watery-eyed seniors, build-a-bear-babies and fat children everywhere.

Multitudes of cars were circling the parking lot like a flock of buzzards with bad eyes, refusing to park anywhere more than 10 feet from the entrance. Once I finally made it through the front doors alive, overhead lights greeted me so bright that my hair bleached blonde and I got a killer tan.

Feeling good with my new tan, I joined the zombie procession down hallways lined with hip teenage clothing stores selling the same shit to different music and made my way to the bookstore.

I brought my book up to the checkout and felt like I was being interrogated!

“Do you have a Chapters iREWARDS card?”

“No.”

“Would you be interested in signing up for our iREWARDS card program, we have a special right now that —”

“No thanks.”

“Can I get your email address to send you information regarding our iREWARDS card?”

“Nah.”

“Do you need a bag for that?”

“No thanks.”

“You okay with the receipt in the book?”

“That would be awesome.”

I just wanted a stupid book and now I'm irritated. That was five questions just to buy a book. It got me thinking about the bombardment of up selling that proliferates our society. They have you in their snare, now they want to squeeze you dry. I don't want your iREWARDS card! I don't want a credit card application in exchange for a bag of cookies! I don't want the new Angry Whopper and I don't want your suggestion that what I am buying is not enough for you! Stop asking, calling, emailing, knocking and poking me into monetary submission. I suppose one is asking for it by just entering into the consumerist lair, but it is still irritating.

The residual effects of the overhead lights had left me parched at this point (you ever notice that there are no water fountains?), so I headed to the food court. Man, are we getting fat!

There was a time when there were no chubby kids, just fat bankers and Italian housewives. The food court was proliferated with 12-year-old boys and girls holding their chests as another angina attack rolled by. “Mommy, I think we need to change the battery again.” Then they sit down and polish off a cup of NY Fries (400 calories), a large Coke (290 calories), and a hot dog (420 calories). That is over 1,100 calories for a snack. We are killing our children almost as quickly as we are killing ourselves. We are waddling around all doughy-faced, pudgy and wheezing. We are also in a state of denial: oh it's glands, or DNA, or some sort of metabolic dysfunction hormone syndrome. No, we are fat. We are fat because we eat too much; we eat garbage and we are lazy.

I spent about an hour after my respite trying to figure out the recycling system and headed to the boring store section of the mall: that dull corner proliferated with eyeglass sellers, a pharmacy, a birthday card store and one of those shops that cannot figure out what it really sells, but is in a perpetual state of ‘closing soon, everything must go.' I headed into the pharmacy to by something for my dry face.

I was standing in line looking at those magazines that line the checkout counters. There before me were a dozen images of skinny women, men with six-packs, rich Tinsel Town couples, stunning cars, and kids with plastic hair wearing cardigans and playing with a puppy on a white shag carpet. Along with these images were headlines spelling out messages like: “How to be a better lover,” “Top 25 diet tips,” “Easy abs in six weeks,” and a photo of Prince William on bended knee before preggo wife Kate with a tear in his eye, with the headline, “I think I am gay.” These images and headlines are not there to inform us, enlighten, enrich, encapsulate or entrance us; they are there to tell us that we suck! Portents of greater things in your life, if only you dare turn the pages herein and discover truths that we are willing to impart for $7.99.

I think it would be more fitting if the headlines were more closely tailored to the ‘real' people of the world, headlines like: “How to act laid back during a grease fire,” “Fat and loving it,” “How to not walk your dog,” and “Five minutes is the new 30 in bed.”

The mall offers all kinds of opportunities to be frightened, amused and irritated: the public washrooms; that shoe-sucking crack at the bottom of the escalator; kiosks that sell calendars with cats on the cover; Abercrombie & Finch ripped-jean, plastic hair teenage girls; intimidating guys in dorags selling cellphone skins; and quaint, plastic-plant-lined lounge areas harboring tired seniors, fat dudes on parked scooters, and escaped husbands texting nobody in particular.

My face started peeling, and so, with a final burst of scorching, arid, stale air, I exited the mall and forgot where I parked.

What a strange experience the mall is: a true testament that we no longer live life, we consume it.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.