Things I See at the Mall

Hiatus

2010-05-07T20:44:00.000-07:00

Until the transition to the new format is complete, TISATM will be on hiatus. Stay tuned for the grand re-opening!

Hey Mikey, He Likes It

2010-03-23T14:12:00.000-07:00

Two teenage boys were waiting in line at the soft pretzel cart.
"Is Mikey coming?"
"I called him up and he said he was grounded."

"What for?"

"He said cause he hooked up with 6 girls."

It's funny because it's direct

2010-03-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

After I informed the customer about the gift wrap that came with a gift card purchase, they asked and I answered.

"Does your phone number come with a giftcard purchase?"

"No."

A Time for Love

2010-03-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

It was the day before Valentines; traffic was high, stock and patience were low. A customer phoned in about a certain lingerie set. After finally getting a moment after ringing up dozens of demanding lovebirds, I'm sent to seek out the item in a store that's been torn up like Rip, I find the last two pieces available. When I relay this information to the man on the phone, he asks for a certain size. We don't have it.
"What do you mean we don't have it?!"
"Well it's the holiday and-"
"I've been trying to get this set at three different stores!"
Pause.
"Well??"
"I don't know what to tell you, Sir."
"You don't know what to TELL me?? Who am I supposed to ask, my wife?!"
"YOU have a wife? I feel sorry for her."
As he started yelling for a manager, I tossed the phone in the drawer and went back to the register.

Maybe he was practicing.

2010-03-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

I watched a man push a baby carriage past the store. In the carriage was a 100 count box of Pampers. There was no child in site.

.
Then I thought, it's silly when an adult has child things without a child,but it's different when a child has adult things without an adult. Then I saw a toddler pushing a shopping cart filled with PBR and fireworks.

The Interview.

2010-02-25T21:19:00.000-08:00

I had a job interview. I power-walked down the street; freshly pressed suit, a collared shirt that brought out my best colors, boots with just a bit of heel and an overcoat with subtle style hints in monochrome buttons and squared shoulders. I was researched, rehearsed, and ready to present myself in my best light. I felt pretty good. I turned a few heads.

One of those heads was a homeless guy who laughed and said, "Oooh lah dee daaah!" as he waved his hands and walked past me.

It is good to be humbled. It is even better to laugh at yourself.

The second time, I phoned in security.

2010-02-17T11:46:00.000-08:00

The last two days I have walked past Spencer Gifts on my break. Both times I have seen the same couldn't-be-older-than-Justin-Bieber-year-old-girl, leaning on the railing outside, bumming with her high-school-was-their-glory-days buddies, sucking on a rainbow-striped grown-man sized phallic lollipop.

As in Mouse (Titmouse?)

2010-02-10T10:24:00.000-08:00

My register froze. It does this from time to time, but this was the fourth time today, and there had been a string of difficult customers. Venting my frustrations, I eululated a low-volume high-pitched cartoon-Cartman-calibur "Meeeeeeeeeh!" from my pouty face. When the display screen kicked back into gear, with my pussface I called out "Next!", only to look up and see a woman in her mid-to-late-forties who had been botoxed into a perminent pussface under her bleached blonde straw mop. When she spoke from her pixienose she berated me in a perfect reflection of my whiney impression.
"You know I think you're very rude and I'm calling corporate to complain, what's your name?"
"Minnie," I said. "Next."

Free Wanks Ick.

2010-02-01T12:33:00.000-08:00

At least five times a day, there have been hang-up phone calls to the store phone. The caller stays on the line long enough to hear us say our monotone bisentence speach about the store they've reached, the big promotion going on, whom is speaking.
Hang-ups happen, it's a large store with a public phone number. But a few of us have heard breathing before a click. One girl swears she heard a moan. None of the phones have caller i.d.

Now, we always make the new girl pick up the phone.

It skips a generation.

2010-01-30T11:07:00.000-08:00

I saw two people, a man and a women, both in their mid forties, and both pushing themselves in rented wheelchairs. A 7-or-so-year-old boy trailed along with them, on foot. And I wondered, why isn't the boy in a wheelchair? Then I decided, wheelchairs are probably a recessive gene.

Well, maybe she is.

2010-01-25T10:05:00.000-08:00

"No, you don't get it - this is why I won't marry you. You're. Wrong," a Don Juan commented to his sweetheart over his blackberry.

The comedy is in the usage, you see.

2010-01-17T11:02:00.000-08:00

"So I said 'Don't you fucking understand that? You can't fucking exchange it! It's a fucking prom dress! Read your fucking receipt, and get it through your fucking head!'", a classy lady explained to her friend over coffee and window shopping.

They're really 60 year old dwarfs.

2010-01-15T11:32:00.000-08:00

A pack of 13-year old cool kids were walking. One was adjusting himself. The other calls: "Hey Sully, why don't you stick your whole hand down there?"

Still messing with the four inches of Tweetiebird shorts killroying themselves out of his Levi's, he yells back in the most New York way, "My boxers fuggin' itch, whatayawant me to do about it?"

Capitalism perplexes the youth.

2010-01-09T11:39:00.000-08:00

Mall landlords usually jazz up vacant lots. Advertising, coverings, window displays; anything to beautify what would otherwise be a big empty dark reminder of the current hard times when many companies just can't afford the rent.

A young entrpeneur passing by the store commented to her companion "I don't understand why there's all these curtains. They should just put more stores in."

Hint: It means slut.

2010-01-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

Two women and a child in a stroller came up to make a purchase. After talking to me in english, as I was completing their transaction the women started chatting in spanish. Now I'm no expert in romance languages, but anyone who grows up in a multiethnic neighborhood has picked up on a few choice words, and anyone whos graduated high school can discern basic phrases.

So when the mother of the girl said to her friend: "I love her but she's terrible, she keeps calling Marco's new wife 'puta',"and the friend replied: "It's not bad if she's correct," I couldn't help but join in laughing as I handed them their receipt.

Happy New Year, Pilgrim.

2010-01-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

On my break, I had to make a purchase of essentals: an extra jumbo value sized box of tampax pearl, the tinniest sugar free Red Bull they make, and a 2010 calander consisting entirely of 14x14 headshots of John Wayne.

I was still not the weirdest person at WalMart. Not by a long shot.

Kind of like tit for tat.

2009-12-31T08:33:00.001-08:00

A woman came in to exchange two bras for two new ones. Unfortunately, the store no longer made the old ones, and only stocked the new & improved forms. She became irate when, without a receipt, the associate could not make an even exchange - the woman could have paid sale price, then come in to try and get the new, full-price bra. When the woman still did not accept this answer, the clerk finally put it like this.

"Look, Ma'am, it's like if you walked into Best Buy with a Gameboy and said 'I'd like that Wii please'. It's not going to happen."

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

2009-12-25T11:07:00.000-08:00

"Excuse me, didn't Epic used to be in this mall?"

"Yes sir, but I believe they closed down."

"What happened to it?"

"...Capitalism?"

Maybe he's getting coal.

2009-12-18T14:30:00.000-08:00

As she is walking through the mall with armfulls of shopping bags with a babbling child at her heels, a mother pauses to turn around and say to her dear son;

"I am SHOPPING. I don't have time for you. I really don't!"

Let us pause and reflect on the virtues of family and love and hope this Holiday season brings upon us.

Candle curves in all the right places.

2009-12-15T16:37:00.000-08:00

I have never seen a thin or sickly person working at a specialty candle shop.
"Holiday Ginger Nutmeg Cocoa Spice" and "Winter Twilight's Peppermint Stick" candles must be appetite stimulants.

Basically it was a good size for singing.

2009-12-11T16:34:00.000-08:00

On the bottom of a teen female's long sweatshirt, the part that covers the butt, were the screenprinted letters"SING IT LOUD"
Now, question. Would the volume of the singing be determined by the size of the buttom?
In that case, the phrasing held true.

Dating advice: Start early.

2009-12-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

Walking back from pictures with santa, a woman said something to her couldn't-be-older-than-5 granddaughter.

"Emily, if a boy asks you out on a date, and he doesn't know what a cotillion is, don't date him."

Transcript of a conversation of an actual man I observed speaking on an actual phone.

2009-12-02T11:30:00.000-08:00

Answers phone.

"Yo. Yo, yo. Yo? Yoooooooo! Yo, yo. Yo. "

Closes phone, exits the store.

It's creepy when they use your name over and over.

2009-12-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

Sometimes customers call whichever phone number they can find, as long as its in the same mall. At 10:00am one morning last week, I had the privilege to answer this phone call.

"Good morning, thank you for calling "----", Susan speaking how may I help you?"

"Do you know when Beefcake Chahlies opens?"

Since there's no male strip club near the property, I ask "...You mean Beefsteak Charlies?" and give her the phone number.

"Thanks Susan. You know the service there was terrible, absolutely terrible. I would not recommend them, no, not at all, I went there last night. Have you ever been there Susan?"

"Uh.."

"Well I would not recommend it. I went there last night and the waitress, awful woman, she barely said a word to us and threw our plates at us and I got fish, and she didn't even give us lemon - I mean people get lemon with fish all the time - do you like fish, Susan?"

"Oh I'm not really into jam bands." No response. "Ah, depends on the fish?"

"Well she brings me a lemon wedge from the bar, like it was for my drink, and when she sees me use it she says 'Oh..It was for your food..' I mean where do they find these people, Susan?"

Possibly in the same place one finds people who call an underwear store to complain about a steakhouse.

November Hiatus +Bonus

2009-11-15T08:57:00.000-08:00

November turned into a break month, posts will resume in december. On my hiatus, here's something I overheard.

I was in my seat on a plane going to visit my sister. I snagged the window seat, and smiled at the middle-aged woman with a huge bag of magazines and snacks who took the aisle seat. She smiled back and seeing we had the middle seat free, I commented how everyone else seemed to be seated, and it was nice that we might have some extra room on the flight. She replied with whisper and a smile.

"Let's just hope no obese person has this seat."

On the one hand, I'm sitting next to an potentially awful woman who unfairly judges people by how they look. On the other hand, I have a ton of extra elbow room and a supply of entertainment.

The moral dilemmas of holiday travel.