How I Survived The Mall & What I learned

Yesterday was day 1 of 7 of Spring Break.
It was a crappy (cloudy, overcast) day here in S.FL so that meant a day for my daughter & friend at the mall.
And, of course it’d be at the mall that’s like a 35 min drive from our place…
Meaning…I stayed at the mall.
Which we all know…I.do.not.like.malls.

So, while the girls enjoyed 6 1/2 hours of fun, shopping, buying clothes…
This is what I did…

Enjoyed me some Denzel and Ryan Reynolds in Safe House
2 hours of action packed hotness (both Denzel and Reynolds)

I will admit I have issues being in crowds, etc…
I’ll blame it on Sensory Overload Disorder (a/k/a Sensory Processing Disorder)
Basically, if my senses go into overload put a fork in me…I’m done!
Smells bother me, certain noises bother me (which is ironic since I’ve lost partial hearing but yet other noises I can pick up distinctly), people in my personal space really bother me!
So, I went to the movie alone after discovering a lot of people do this (yep, I tweeted & posted on Facebook about it!)
I got to movie few minutes before starting…
found a seat away from anyone…
that didnt last long 🙁
people came in…
And, why they felt the need to sit all around me in an empty theater is beyond me…but they did.
There was one empty chair on each side of me then people munching on popcorn which was irritating, 2 women who bathed in perfume and a guy behind me trying to find out the history of wrestling shoes.
Perhaps I normally aren’t as sensitive to all this when the movies are more crowded or I try to control it more when my daughter’s with me?
I don’t know, but at one point I was ready to walk out of movie it was that bad for me.
Then thought about the major coinage (forgot how expensive movies are) and the fact I was stuck at mall…
So I stayed…
I survived…
but not without getting a migraine.

Then, next stop…
food court to get the packages from the girls so they wouldn’t have to walk around carrying them all.

Fortunately I planned ahead and brought my iPad with me to keep me occupied and I could do some work while there.
Food court was entirely too noisy but yet less crowded than the benches throughout the mall.
So, ordered some food (never again…I wasted $4 on some veggie delight that I took 2 bites of and threw away-was dry and nasty).
So, got out the iPad and started tweeting and posting on Facebook.

A family sat at table in front of me…
Man, woman and 3 kids.
The man and woman were eating normal food…pasta, salad and juice.
The kids…they had nothing.
The girl, probably 6 or 7, kept asking the mom for some of her food.
The mom refused sharing her food.
Said they’d stop at Mc Donald’s after they left the mall.
I was like “say what!?” in my head (hey I’ve learned, I’m not getting myself shot or anything stupid down here by getting involved face to face with people-I kinda like breathing!)
The daughter kept on asking for a good 5 minutes, the whole time the mom and dad ate their food while kids sat there watching.
Now, my thoughts were on all the tweet chats about child obesity and children with health issues and how some people defend the parents saying they don’t know better, they need to be educated, kids drive parents nuts begging for happy meals, etc.
But, here before me were 2 parents eating a semi decent meal (as good as you can get in a food court anyhow) and a child wanting said meal and being told no, that she can have mc d’s?!
She wasn’t asking for fast food, she wasn’t begging for that happy meal…
She wanted what they were eating…yet wasn’t given any.
How does that make sense?
I could be making more of it or thinking too much about it…
But, it made zero sense to me and like I said majority online chats claims that parents don’t know, thus kids suffer.
Perhaps, parents are selfish and care more about themselves than the kids?
Which could go waaaaaaaaay back as well when parents ate one type of meal (ie: steak, seafood) while kids were fed hot dogs & mac n’ cheese.
Just random thoughts I had as I watched this little girl not get a better meal than she would get at Mc D’s after they left the mall.

Was quite interesting some of the people I saw…
a dude wearing skin tight white capri pants…
just something wrong about that!
But, hey props on having courage to wear that out in public…
Then again, it wasn’t as revealing (just odd) as some of the other outfits I saw people wearing…
and to those who say girls dress provocatively because of tv and movies…not the case for a few girls at the mall, who’s mothers looked like they just stepped off the Boulevard!
Just saying, we shouldn’t blame tv, movies and society for all wrong, and perhaps look in the mirror sometime!
Wish I had been able to take pics, but my camera phone bites and I was low on battery-needing to conserve it for when the girls were ready to meet to go home.

I then decided I’d better walk around…
Keep out of trouble that way and get some exercise since it was apparent by that time I’d be there awhile!

FYI: If you go to a richy rich mall, do expect people to look oddly at you if you should decide to do walking lunges, and/or yoga poses in obsolete places in mall thinking that nobody’s watching…they are!
So, that was a fail…
Opted for walking up and down stairs in mall until it got too crowded!

I detest going into Macy’s but needed to look for a dress.
I had no choice but to go through the perfume, makeup section to get to dresses…
It’s always like an obstacle course trying to maneuver through there before a sales lady attempts to spray her chemical migraine inducing funk on me!
I barely made it through without getting sprayed!

I then went to the benches near the entrance we came in…
figured I’d hit up the iPad, get some more work done and just chill there.
Imagine 3 benches in a line…2 of which are totally empty.
I’m sitting on the middle bench with all the packages spread out so there was only a small empty space (done intentionally since I do not want people in my personal space should others take up the empty benches on both sides of me).
Lo and behold some insane guy (he had to be insane to sit next to me!) sits down right next to me?!
WTH!???
Seriously?!
He passed an empty bench to come sit in my space?!
Like I said…insane!
He looked at me, smiled and I picked up all my packages and moved to the next bench!

Even my ex called to check on me (yes, even he knows the mall & I do not get along)…and to see how the girls were enjoying “malling” lol
I told him about weird dude sitting next to me and he’s like “maybe he liked you” (which was the majority response on Facebook as well)
to which my response was ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
If you like me, do not invade my space or at least ASK before you do that way I can shoot you down right then & there!

I swear it was a multitude of tests yesterday at the mall…
the movie, people, weird dude sitting in my space…
I did it though, I survived!
And, if I don’t visit a mall again anytime soon I’d be happy happy!

Question of the day
Do you like the mall?
Are you doing anything over Spring Break?