I didn't really want to go. The mall is not for me.

Especially on a rainy weekend afternoon.

Especially the day after a fun but draining family reunion.

But the kid "needed" a new cell phone...which required his mom's signature (not mine, I stay out of that crap). So I went along for the ride.

Because it was raining I picked out Greg Brown's Further In for the drive up there. For some reason I find myself drawn to Brown's music on rainy days. It must be the intimacy of it. Dunno.

The song "Where Is Maria" was playing as we pulled into the Sears parking lot. Funny, that tune has so many lyrics that can be used to describe the mall's innards:

"...while the whole world struggles to become one bland place"

"there'll be one corporation selling one little box
it'll do what you want and tell you what you want and cost whatever you got"

...Which is what it felt like inside. I stood for a moment in the center of one of the "intersections", just watching. It looked like a scene from a bad sci-fi movie: with nearly every kid programming, "dialing", or speaking into a cell phone.

I went home and read a book for the rest of the afternoon.

(First posted on Mark Is Cranky)