EMO USQUE AD MORTEM
Right after the holidays the usual thing to do is visit the mall to return or exchange things. Around here however, the usual thing is to go look for sales and buy things to put away for next year. You have to hope that the intended recipient for next year does not have a major life altering event or, if you buy clothing, that they don’t lose or gain too much weight. It can be embarrassing to give someone a “medium” when they’ve grown into a “large” and you have to admit the item was sitting in your attic for a year.
This year I did have some exchanges to make however, and to avoid potential crowds and traffic I drove 75 miles further north to a shopping mall in a more rural area. Plus, I went on a Sunday several weeks after Christmas, certain the mall itself would be deserted. It had been some 20 years since I had last been to this mall. What used to be a quaint little “town square” type mall now extended across three counties, had its own zip code, a fire department and a park ‘n ride lot.
It had snowed a few days earlier and much of the parking lot was still icy. SUV’s battled each other for parking spaces up close to the stores, and looked like giant mountain goats locking horns on a craggy peak. SUV drivers can be brutal. In some cases they had parked right on top of small cars like the Prius, which might help explain why four-wheel drive is so popular around crowded cities and suburbs.
I parked in the outer zone and walked the remaining five miles, packages held tight, scarf and hat drawn against a punishing wind that was blowing loose snow in all directions. I had to return a too-small sweater that had obviously been in someone else’s attic over the past year, a crystal punch bowl (does anyone make punch anymore?) and a deluxe TV remote control device that only had instructions in Korean. It was a simple trip. The worst part would be just getting to the mall itself. Once inside I could open my coats and enjoy the 92-degree temperature set to accommodate teenagers wearing shorts and flip flops under their ski jackets. I’ve actually never seen teens wearing coats inside a mall in the winter. It’s interesting. I see them with coats on in the parking lot, but never inside. Where do they put them? There is no coat check anywhere. Another one of the mysteries of teen life.
About halfway across the parking lot I started to think about the whole modern experience of shopping. Some of us baby boomers predate shopping malls by just a few years and can still remember when shopping meant roaming around downtown with your mother yanking on your arm. I’m sure someone will correct this, but covered malls only started arriving sometime in the early 1960’s and were quite a novelty. Until that time the closest thing to one-stop shopping was a big department store, many of which are now gone.
Some time ago I had done some research and found that shopping malls actually date to the Greek agora, but the Romans elevated shopping to an art form or forum. They too had giant malls, called spendi maximus, where you could find everything from marble urns to purple cloth. Roman malls were also popular hangout spots for teens. Girls often wore very short togas and boys wore their headbands backwards in rebellion to their parents. Adult women were highly attracted to cumin getit (post-holiday sales), and their version of the modern cash machine was an Argentum Lendit Tua or moneylender.
The Romans of course didn’t celebrate our modern holidays, but they had their own local events, including Femina Virginis en Volcanus in Pompeii, Cristianus y Lionus in Rome and Gaulus Roastia in the northern territories. Apparently most of their holidays involved gifting, as well as returning gifts afterward much like today. Most shopping was controlled by women and men were required to carry packages, also much like today. However, there was often a shopping area for men where they could check out tools, weapons and chariot parts called a Searsarus. This was not to be confused with Littlus Caesar’s, a chain of pizza delivery stores owned by the famous Roman leader Julius, who also invented an orange drink still available today.
I’m pleased to say that my trip only took nine hours since I was able to hitch a ride on a dog sled for the last three miles of the parking lot. Inside the mall was very crowded but most people were in the food court watching toddlers spit up the remnants of Happy Meals while the stores were more or less empty. I was able to exchange the sweater for an extra-large (I’m working on it) and I changed the punch bowl for a more practical wooden salad bowl. The television remote was exchanged for an electric stapler that I’m sure I will have a use for some day.
On the way back out I was startled by a large talking sign that seemed to recognize me and what I had just acquired. A video screen popped on with a nicely dressed young man who said “if you need extra large sizes we’d like to recommend…” I walked quickly away and didn’t hear the end of it. And I did not want to know how it knew about my sweater. I looked back over my shoulder and saw the next shopper being “video mugged” and wondered if the Romans had anything similar. Perhaps Julius Caesar’s demise had nothing to do with politics after all. Perhaps he was just a victim of some very aggressive retail practices. I suddenly felt a little bit better about the talking sign.
Note: December 2010 retail sales for large chain and department stores, including Macy’s, Target and J.C. Penney, were up 3.1% over December 2009. Analysts claim the snowstorms in late December dampened sales considerably but were a big improvement over the downward trend of the past few years. No one seems to track how much lower sales might be if you figure in post-Christmas returns.
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