Item #17 - Visit the Mall of America

"I love the smell of commerce in the morning!" -Brodie Bruce
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I love my mom. She's fantastic is ever so many ways. However, she can also be . . . a little scary. In fact, back in high school, I basically feared her. When we crossed her, my siblings and I never really got punished in the literal grounded-for-a-week sense of the word.  We were usually punished in the more abstract "mental abuse" sort of way. Break her rules*, and you were usually subjected to hours upon hours of lecturing soliloquies that explained why you were such a disrespectful child. And my god, the cussing in her speeches would make Andrew Dice Clay feel uncomfortable.

*My favorite example - around the age of 15, my bedroom was in the front of the house, and thus, the window faced the street. One day, when she was a cleaning rampage, she threatened to ground me for a week because I left my closet doors open. The reasoning? The criminals can look into my room and learn more about what they could steal from our house.

Anyway, the thought of having to endure any of her infamous lectures was a better deterrent for rule-breaking than any possible grounding could ever be. They were EXCRUCIATING. And what made it even more difficult was the fact that her spying and sleuthing skills would have made the makers of the Patriot Act proud.

Exhibit A - My junior year, I went to a homecoming dance at another high school (let's call it High School A) as a favor to my friend Christy (who later became my girlfriend, who later my my ex-girlfriend). Christy's guy friend had invited a girl, Erika (from High School B), to the dance, but a week beforehand, he found out he couldn't go. So they were left with an extra ticket to the homecoming dance. So Christy asked me (who went to High School C) to go with Erika to High School A's dance. I said yes, and we became the only date I've known of to go to a high school formal in which neither participant went to that particular high school. Staying with me? Good. Anyway, we all go to the dance, a good time is had by all, and I go home. And the first thing my mom says to me is "Why didn't you open the door for her?" Huh? Yes, my mom had "borrowed" the directions to Erika's house, and when I went to pick her up, my mom tailed me, and then parked a few houses down the street, apparently just to make sure I wasn't going out with a $20 whore.

Exhibit B - This one's for my little sister Bridget. I don't know the details, but here's what I do know. Bridget was dating a guy, probably during her early college days. She was home for whatever reason, and her and the new boy went out on a date. He came by our house, and then my sister drove. But at some point during the night, she got a call from my mom, asking how to turn off the boy's car alarm. And why was that necessary? Because my mom had tried to go through his car to find clues on . . . well . . . . I'm not sure exactly what she was looking for. Just know that if you're a girl, and you go out with me, and my mom knows your name, she's probably got your grade school transcript by the time the check for our dinner comes.

So yeah. Between the ever-present paranoia of my mom potentially installing a spy cam in my car, and the fear of her legendary lectures, I was a fairly straight-laced kid in high school. And really, the majority of my friends were too. Most of us didn't start drinking until spring break of our senior year. High school parties from movies like Can't Hardly Wait were myths to us (and yes, I just referenced Can't Hardly Wait. Hopefully you can handle that . . . .Aman . . . . DUH). So we basically spent Friday and Saturday nights in one of 3 places: at the movies (watching stellar films like Can't Hardly Wait), in someone's basement (not drinking), or at the mall. Hell yes, we were mallrats.

 Brodie thinks we were cool

We spent many a weekend night hanging out at Lakeside Mall in our sweet-ass varsity jackets. And you know why they were sweet? Because they had gold sleeves and a purple chest. Oh, and did I mention that we went to an all-guys school? Yeah. Bad . . . ass. And nope, not gay at all.  (I'm 31 now. I've long outgrown the homophobic phase. But a group of 16 year olds at an all guy school? Definitely not there yet. And to kids from other schools, the varsity letters might as well have been scarlet G's on our chests (or purple G's, if the story of Tinky Winky is to be believed)).

And sweet Jesus, Shannon Hamilton would have hated us.

"You're one of those loser fucking mallrat kids. You don't come to the mall to shop or work. You hang out all day, act like you fucking live here. Well, I have no respect for people with no shopping agenda."

Call me Donny . . . call me Joey

Yeah, we were fucking loser mallrat kids. We had no shopping agenda. Buying a Cinnabon was considered a spree. We made laps, or just hung out by the central fountain. And we liked it. We had no trouble making our own fun. We'd have someone pretend to have an injury, limp around the middle of the mall in crutches, and have person B run by and kick-out their crutches, drive-by style, just to enjoy the public's reactions. We were Jack-Ass before there was Jack-Ass . . . . on an exponentially weaker scale, and with probably far less drugs. But we were cool with it. Well, we were cool with it until we discovered beer. Then it was lame. Seriously, who does that shit? Stupid kids.

Well 2 weeks ago, I did that shit again (the mall hanging, not the pseudo-Jack-Ass-ery). My little sister Bridget has been living in Minneapolis for 5 years, and I had yet to get out there to visit her. So it was time. And while I had been there 7 years ago on our guy's annual baseball trip, those trips usually just entail visiting the stadium and visiting the several bars around the stadium while making drunken asses of ourselves. Thus, on my final day of of the visit, we made it out to the monument of consumerism known as the Mall of America, and once again, I did so with no shopping agenda whatsoever (though I did leave with about $100 or so worth of souvenirs of capitalism. U-S-A! U-S-A!). 

Your quick Wikipedia fun facts for this mini-tour:

• The Mall has 520+ stores
• It's the biggest in the US, but it's 2nd in North America behind one in Edmonton. Friggin' Canucks.
• TLC films a show called Mall Cops there. I can only imagine it's as brilliant as the smash hit Paul Blart, Mall Cop (Why America!?! Why!?!)
• There are 4 Caribou Coffee's there
• They have an aquarium and an amusement park

And your quick visual tour:

Not a very impressive sign, but more impressive than . . . 

 . . . the one in the parking lot

Also found in the parking lot, prompting a new list item - have sex in the parking lot of the Mall of America

There was a some sort of dance competition going on the day we were there. I was kind of hoping for either a taping of Truth or Date, or a duet performance by Tiffany and Debbie Gibson

World's Largest Gummy Bear. Guess the total calories (answer at bottom)

The center of the Mall, an amusement park. And you're damn right we rode a roller coaster.

Not much else to say besides thanks to my little sis for bringing me back to my Mallrat roots. And with that, I'll leave you with a little story from the aforementioned King of the Mallrats, Brodie Bruce:

"One time my cousin Walter got this cat stuck up his ass. True story. He bought it at our local mall, so the whole fiasco wound up on the news. It was embarrasing for my relatives and all, but next week, he did it again. Different cat, same results, complete with another trip to the emergency room. So, I run into him a week later in the mall and he's buying another cat. And I says to him, "Jesus, Walt! What are you doing? You know you're just gonna get this cat stuck up your ass too. Why don't you knock it off?" And he said to me, "Brodie, how the hell else am I supposed to get the gerbil out?""

* Gummy Bear calories = 6120 calories