JUST BROWSING, THANKS

Yesterday my husband and I wanted to get out of the house for awhile, so we decided to go to the local shopping mall. Yes, we knew it was the weekend before Christmas and that it would be crowded. That was the whole idea. We wanted to lose ourselves among the crowds and forget our troubles. We're early risers so we had time to run over to the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park first, which happens to be fairly close to the mall. As members of the Zoological Society we pay once a year and can go as often as we want. We love animals, so to us this membership is a necessity rather than a luxury. We need it for our sanity.

If you read my Facebook posts, you already know that the Park has a pair of two week old lion cubs. Cats grow fast, so we wanted to check on their progress. Imagine our disappointment when we got there only to discover that they weren't going to be on exhibit for another hour. Normally we would have walked around while waiting to see them, but I wasn't wearing walking shoes. I was dressed for the mall, not the rolling hills of the Safari Park. So we left for the mall after our shortest stay ever at the Park.

 

Being early we had no trouble finding a parking space. So we parked and went to Panera for coffee and a bagel. Our disappointment over not seeing the cubs turned to pleasure as we savored our cranberry walnut bagels, complete with cream cheese. Did you know they not only charge separate for the cream cheese, but it's more expensive than the damn bagel itself? I didn't realize that until I looked at the receipt. Trying not to think about that fact, we sat and enjoyed our coffee refills (free refills - yeah) and watched the shoppers bustling about carrying their packages. At least the economy was improving for some people. A few years ago in that same mall, people walked around, but few were buying.

 

With fresh fuel in our systems, it was time to browse through the mall. At least there weren't any empty store fronts. After the recession hit a few years ago, that mall was littered with empty stores. The only stores that didn't come back were the book stores (too depressing to even comment on). The Apple store sure was busy. We foolishly stepped inside to see what was new, but after seeing the look on the clerk's face when we replied "just browsing, thanks", we moved on.

Once we got to the other end of the mall I couldn't pass us the pet shop. That's one place where more people look than buy - and with good reason! They rarely have kittens anymore so we were surprised to encounter one sleepy little two month old Himalayan curled up in a little kitty hammock hanging from the cage. Cute invention by the way. We weren't the only ones enamored over this furry little bundle. When we found out how much they wanted for this precious creature, we all settled for telling stories of our own cats and showing pictures. Well, isn't that what smart phones and Facebook are for - showing cat photos? On the way out of the store I thought back to a white Himalayan I once had. Got him free, so you know that was a long time ago.

 

Continuing on through the mall we tried to avoid the salesman handing out free samples of face lotion in front of a cosmetics store. We foolishly accepted the sample and were immediately sucked into the store for a demo. Actually it was a pleasant experience as we enjoyed our conversation with this former Israeli commando. I think he actually thought he had us sold on the product when he said he was selling it at half price - $200 - that was half price? "Oh, but it has flecks of gold in it and it's a year's supply" he said. When I said thanks, but no thanks, he handed us a bunch of samples and sent us on our way. I guess he figured we really needed that lotion!

 

As we walked out of the mall and back to our old beat up jeep, I looked around at all the nice new cars and wondered if we were living in the wrong neighborhood - or the wrong century.

 

Thanks for reading - see you in a few days - if we can keep our computer out of the shop long enough. And in case you were wondering - they only wanted $2,000 for that kitten!

 

 

 These are the gold flecks that should be up with the cosmetics paragraph. Formatting problems prevented me from even deleting it.