I Love The Mall

People. If you know me at all, you know that I have a weird love for hanging out in shopping malls. I think it's because I grew up in a small, midwestern town where you pretty much only had a handful of options for how to spend your time.

Some examples of popular "hangs" for my high school classmates, circa 1995:

a. Hanging out in the parking lot of BP, bumpin' Bone Thugs and trying to get people to buy you beer
b. Hanging out in the parking lot of Little Caesar's on Main St, blasting Sublime and going WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
c. Hanging out in Flushing Park, blasting The Dead and pounding Natty Ices
d. Tokin' on Phat Doobz in a wooded area outside of town known as "Van Halen"
e. Fingering/getting fingered in a car on a dirt road somewhere
g. Hanging out at Denny's on Pierson Road at 12:30 am, singing showtunes, drinking coffee and pissing off the waitstaff (for teetotalling drama-club nerds like myself)
h. Streaking through the Elms Elementary playground at night (seriously, if you don't drink you have to come up with more creative ways to pass the time)

Ok obviously Flushing, Michigan has a pretty awesome nightlife scene, but what do you do at 6:30 pm on a Saturday when you've already blazed through the entire Horror section at Family Video and you feel the need to head to the big city? (Flint)

You go to the mall, that's what.

I spent half my teenagerdom hanging out at Genesee Valley Center with my friends Pam, Erik and Mike. Especially Pam. We would hit the Taco Bell in the food court and fill up on Mexican Pizzas, and then spend the next few hours walking a loop around the mall's 125 or so stores. We'd go try on puffy Knott's Landing dresses at Jean Nicole and sneak pictures in the dressing room. Maybe after that we'd go shoplift some shit from Hudson's Department Store and then go hit up Hot Topic and make fun of some freshly-minted goths, but then sheepishly buy Smiths pins. Then we'd loiter around Record Town, Tape World and Suncoast Motion Picture company for awhile before ending up at the best mall store of all time, Spencer's Gifts.

Seriously. I have such a deep and passionate love for Spencer's. Look at the shit you can buy there!

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:



Exhibit C: (WHAT IS THIS??!?!?!?! I am intrigued)



Exhibit D:



Exhibit E: (Wow)



This lives in my kitchen, and was purchased at the Serramonte Spencer's. Best $40 ever spent.



Don't even get me started on their stellar selection of Insane Clown Posse t-shirts, pot leaf hats, tit mugs and edible thongs! They should actually change the name of the store to Spencer's Gifts For Stoners and Juggalos.

I love San Francisco and all, but it sucks that you have to travel to Serramonte Mall in Daly City to go to a real mall. Downtown Plaza is all fancy and full of useless stores like Jacadi and Reiss - fuck that shit! A mall is just not a mall without Spencer's, or at LEAST a Frederick's of Hollywood. Even Stonestown knows where it's at.