The Grim Burrito

I'm no fan of malls in general but in particular I've determined that my local mall is a bizarre and mysterious place and quite possibly the set for some grotesque horror movie. It's super depressing. There's no real reason it should be so morose, it's brightly lit, it has a decent Barnes & Noble type bookstore full of books and shiny novelty things, it has a coffee shop, a national chain drugstore, a Safeway, an electronics chain store and a dearth of cheap shops filled with a mixture of possibilities and trash.

But it's just not a happy place. There's an undercurrent of loathing and decay.

At one end there's a hopelessly depressing department chain store, filled with over priced but ill-made knock offs of designer goods, surly cashiers who can't seem to get anything right and frowning customers disputing prices.

The coffee shop is swarming with senior citizens, sipping coffee. I'm pretty sure they each nurse that one cup the whole day. They are not the happy, sprightly or cheerful breed of senior citizen enjoying their retirement by socializing with their friends, they are all stern and quiet, their eyes following you as you walk by as if to say, "What are you doing here? We would like to suck out your brain with a straw." I'm pretty sure the regular elderly population forsook that mall years ago for greener pastures, when they figured out the mall seniors are actually zombies.

One day when I'm in there on an errand, I fully expect the electric doors to jam shut, the lights to dim and the entire mall to go into some deadly lockdown as the mall-zombies come out to feast on the few unsuspecting customers who dare breach their territory.

Thank God that department store stocks chainsaws.