At the mall

Last night after I showered, I was trying to clean the lenses of my reading glasses when the bridge snapped and suddenly I had a lens in each hand. Since I can't work at my computer without reading glasses, this created difficulty. I'm way overdue for an eye examination, so I decided to get a prescription for new glasses rather than buy new frames for the old lenses. That plan flopped since the HMO couldn't work me in on short notice, and I couldn't wait nearly two weeks to be able to read again.

This afternoon, I bit the bullet and headed to the mall to see if Eye Masters could match my lenses to a frame in stock. They could, and because I've been a regular customer for several years, they gave me a 50 percent discount on the new frames. A nice piece of good luck for a change, unusual in my world.

Since the heat index today was around 100 degrees, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and do my daily walk at the mall where it's cool and pleasant. If you stay to the right of the red and blue floor tile patterns at all times, one circuit of the mall takes about 14 minutes at my pace (roughly four miles per hour), and since it's level (no slopes), I walked an extra mile for a total of 65 minutes. Mall walking is pretty boring, so I tried to observe what was going on around me to occupy my mind and make the hour pass more rapidly.

First observation: I'd conservatively estimate that 99 percent of the people at a mall on a weekday afternoon are not there to get exercise. Trying to walk at a speed of four mph in a mall is like a pedestrian reenactment of the chase scene from The French Connection, with me as Gene Hackman and everybody else as the woman pushing the baby carriage. I'm constantly passing on the right, on the left and up the middle, trying to avoid collisions with people who are out sightseeing so to speak.

Second observation: Indicating that things aren't as tough as we hear on the news, an amazing number of people, especially women, are paying to have their toenails done at mall salons that seem to specialize in that kind of thing. If the country is slipping into the next great depression, there are lots of people who haven't gotten the word.

Third observation: There are attractive young women who shop at the mall, but there are numerous women who shouldn't be caught dead wearing cut-offs or short shorts.

Fourth observation: There are just as many people taking up space while they chat on cell phones at the upscale mall stores as there are at Walmart. Surprising but true. Rudeness in America knows no boundaries.

Final observation: After Waldenbooks closed, there were no longer many reasons for me to shop at the mall. I can buy the stuff I want for less elsewhere. On a hot summer day, the mall's a nice place to walk but I wouldn't want to live there.