Posts Tagged 'bricks and mortar retail'

The most depressing place in the world

Published 15 May 2009 General 8 Comments
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Among other things, I’ve been counseled to bring a hat with me to Greece — a light, wide-brimmed hat that will help keep off the sun. I’ve found one I like online, but despite being reasonably sure I’ll get it, since I was out by the mall this evening anyway, I decided to stroll through and see if there was anything I could see there.

Macy’s? Nope.

Sears? Uh-uh.

A hat store called “Lids”? No.

Target? I got nothin’.

K & S Men’s? Zip.

ANY OTHER FREAKING STORE IN THE ENTIRE MALL???? Non, monsieur.

I walked from one end of the blasted mall to the other, walking past every single store. There was not a blessed thing that I wanted to buy.

It wasn’t just hats, either — there wasn’t even anything I found the slightest bit interesting as an impulse purchase.

Even better — it was Friday evening in early summer, and while it wasn’t dead, it sure wasn’t exactly hopping, either.

This caused me to see the entire mall as being full of people doing nothing more productive than sitting there waiting for people to spend money, and for no better reason than somehow it has turned out to be more cost-effective this way than for all of them to actually produce something.

Talk about depressing.

It got even more depressing when I saw children on leashes. I became mind-numbingly despairing when I noticed the signs about the “mall-walkers” needing to renew their memberships.

I tried to go to a bookstore to cheer up. Bad move. Borders here is dying; they have all of the display shelves right up by the door to try to make you not notice that there are large areas of floor where they’ve removed shelves because there’s no product to restock. Barnes and Noble is increasingly the same way. I’d go elsewhere, but the trouble is, around here, the smaller bookstores are just plain creepy (which is why most of the time I just buy my books, CDs, and DVDs online anymore).

This is rapidly becoming representative of my experience of retail establishments in general. They have nothing I want, and the atmosphere is soul-deadening.

“Retail therapy”? It’s more like I need therapy after trying to shop retail.

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