Shopping Malls: Denizens of Evil

Last night, the wife wanted to go to the mall to buy more garbage that we don't need. Normally, I'd put up a mild protest about spending money we don't have on what will inevitably turn out to be dust collectors. However, when she told me she wanted me to go along as well, I simply burst into tears.

I hate the mall. It's an evil, evil place. Fortunately, we still have 8.5 months until Christmas, so we're not forced into those crowds. But the fact that I have to walk past a billion non-conformists all ironically shopping for the same exact clothes at Hot Topic is enough to make me want to gouge my eyes out with a spork. And it's not like there's an electronics store where I can wile away the hour as my wife spends our hard-earned money, so I'm stuck going to Baby Gap or some such nonsense.

After she had purchased all the things she wanted, we opted to grab some dinner in the food court. A few options existed for our dining fare. There was the always present and tactfully clothed employees at Hot Dog On a Stick, Jarrod's favorite hangout at Subway, some Chinese food place that advertised a lack of MSG in their food and the most vile tasting pizza ever to be named a pizza:

I'm hardly a pizza snob. In fact, I find Domino's to be one of the greatest dining fares ever to exist. And since I don't even need to talk to a human being and still have the perfect pizza delivered to my door within 30 minutes, it's become even better.

But Sbarro's is nothing more than cardboard with tomato paste and a few slices of faux-pepperoni.

And my wife wanted it. Again, normally we're fine with eating at different places while in the mall. I'll spot her a $20 and have her go about her way as I go mine. But since she was holding the baby, I couldn't very well leave her to her own devices as she tried to manage holding a 5 foot slice of pie, a soda and a 9-month old grabbing for it all while I took off in the hopes of having a few french fries with my corn dog. So I took one for the team and had to order from the same place.

It'd been a number of years since I'd eaten there. And it's still as bad. The pizza was cold, the meat was rubbery and the cheese was hard. If I knew any better, I'd say the same pizza had been sitting under the heat lamp since last week.

Yes, that was how my pizza looked. No, as I said, it was not warm.

I then proceeded to tell my wife that if she ever forced me to eat at this place again, I would deem it a divorcable offense and take it upon myself to get in touch with my lawyer. I want half.