Malls.....

 Is it just me, or are malls now so confusing that you have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs so you can find your way back out again once you are done? I’m starting to think the reason you see so many old people on benches at the local shopping centre isn’t because they love shopping, it’s because they stumbled in when they were young, got lost, and now live in Bras and Things. In fact, I think I smell a TV show idea: Survivor Westfield.   “Your challenge today is to use your evasion skills to avoid being stopped by any of the mobile phone salespeople, or people selling really expensive sand you can wash your hands with, on your way to the food court. The first person there will be rewarded by getting to eat the free samples on the plate outside the Muffin Break!” My main problem at my local mall is I can never find the car. Forget having a GPS in the vehicle, I need to carry one around to find my way back to it. I swear the minute I walk through the automatic doors they spin the entire building around. And I am still convinced the carpark levels rotate on some sort of rotisserie.
  Of course I am sure you have guessed this design confusion is entirely intentional. What is meant to happen is the layout is so confusing that your eyes glaze and your jaw slackens and you buy anything no matter how ridiculous. Which is also kind of what happened to me during the movie Donnie Darko. (Seriously, can someone explain that film to me? You know those ads on the tele that say: “Marijuana: You don’t know what it will do to you”? I know what it will do, result in you making films like Donnie Darko!) You may have noticed most malls you go to have hexagonal floor plans. That’s because they are the most difficult to navigate.
  If retailers could get away with it, the minute you walked though the door of the mall they would blindfold you, spin you around in a circle three times, take off the blindfold and say: “Let’s go shopping!” Tricky bastards, aren’t they? I remember the old days where the only things you had to take shopping with you were a bag and your credit card. These days you also need a compass, trail mix and a Sherpa. Sometimes when I’m walking around my local mall I get so lost I half expect David Bowie to jump out and start singing: “Dance Magic Dance!” (Yes, that was a Labyrinth reference. What, too soon?)
 And of course there are no clocks. The only time you will ever see the time in a mall is if you try and buy a watch, and even then they are all set to London time, or New York time or Hammer Time. But all that said, I must confess there is also something completely compelling about a proper shopping mall. It’s a condensed consuming experience.
  I still remember when the first big shopping mall opened where I grew up. For the first ten or so years of my life if you wanted to buy different things you had to go to different shops in different places, but all that changed with the arrival of Leichhardt Marketplace. 
  I was so excited when it opened. Twenty years later I still remember the TV ads spruiking: “Leichhardt Marketplace, where it’s always 21 degrees and fine!” You know a place doesn’t have much going for it when the best thing they can come up with to promote the place is: “We have air-conditioning!”
 That would be the equivalent of Bunnings not mentioning they sell tools, and instead changing their slogan to: “Bunnings- we have doors that you can walk both in and out of!” I mean I can understand that being a selling point if they had been opening a mall on the surface of the sun, but on Earth is it really a surprise to anyone that an indoor shopping centre is climate controlled? Was there anyone thinking: “It has air-con? Whew, that is a relief! I mean I was at my local mall the other day and almost lost my kids in a tsunami!”
  “Well that’s nothing mate. You know that charcoal chicken you can smell in the air? That’s because there is currently a bushfire in Nandos!” “Well don’t go near the Pets Paradise then guys. There is a tornado in there and I just saw a shitzu fly by like that cow in Twister. Hey you know where we should go? Leichhardt Marketplace…I hear it’s always 21 degrees and fine.”