Mauled by Woodland Mall

It’s amazing how much a mall is like a church. The minute I step in from the cold winter rain, 3 ladies in beautiful clothes usher me in, inviting me to find join the service in the holy sanctuary. They seem to accept and welcome anyone from any religion, culture, or race. As I walk in towards the center of the mall, bright colors from all directions capture my attention. I take a deep breath and an aroma of creativity and ingenuity cover me. Everything I need is in here. I run from one store to another admiring all the different characters I can buy. I shoot a glance at a pair of basketball shoes and suddenly I find myself shooting up towards the rim like Michael Jordan and slamming the ball into the hoop. I look at a tuxedo and imagine myself stepping out of a black limousine, walking down a red carpet in Hollywood and basking in the white flashing lights. I get to choose who I’m going to be by buying what the mall offers me - this is paradise. After a while, my legs start aching from all the walking and I find a comfortable seat in the center of the mall and I start typing.

It’s amazing how different a mall is from a church. The minute I enter the mall, 3 manikins in scandalous clothing look down at me with cold, emotionless eyes trying to convince me to join their religion. As I walk in, I am appalled at the sight of people mindlessly walking from one store to another in search of ways to please their insatiable desires for more. Every window displays all the different indulgences they have and I am disgusted. The mall reeks of selfishness and greed. People don’t need anything in the mall; they’re only here to satisfy their “limitless desires for commodities” (80 Pahl). It seems the architects placed the sofas in the center so even while you’re resting you can look at everything. The store clerks act interested in me and ask how I’m doing and how they can help. But I know most of them don’t care how I really am doing. They just want to swipe my plastic card and the only reason they want to help is to make me feel guilty if I leave without repaying them for the help they’ve given. They’re all wearing a mask, trying to sell me their fabricated source of happiness. Nauseated by everything, I sit on a hard wooden chair by Starbucks and write all these things.

The first paragraph describes what my initial feelings were as I entered the mall and the second paragraph describes what my initial thoughts were as I entered the mall. My mind was in the right place but my emotions were still trapped by the “religion of the market” as John Pahl puts it (67). I left without buying anything, because I wanted to show the mall that they could never define who I was by trying to manipulate me into buying who I fantasized to be.