Drowning in the suburban mall

I've sunk to new lows.  Yesterday I made a trip to our nearby suburban mall.  In four years of living at this address, I've only visited there twice, both times in the past few months.


It's supposed to be the best of the malls in Melbourne (there are five or six around the suburbs).  A friend of mine, shocked when I told her I'd never been there, said she'd drive across town to go to "Chaddy", as it is known in the local vernacular.  But on my first visit to Chaddy I was struck by just how similar it was to the shops in the city, a place where I have been blessed with a few too many pointless lunch hours.


On this recent visit the parking lot was filled to the outer reaches and the halls were packed with meandering hoards of people not quite sure why they were there.  They were wandering the mall to spend their time more than their money, in pursuit of a purchase to take home as a souvenir.


One of the nice things about living in a moderately large city (no comments from the NYC folks, please) is that the local shopping areas are generally easier to get to than the mall, and many of them contain a great selection of stores, making malls mostly irrelevant for those of us shopping out of need (or at least perceived need).  But in the mall, the marketer rules.  Things are not sold because they will be useful, but because the masses are an easy target in our time of plenty.  We live in a disposable society (I've said it before); things are produced to last only a few uses, at best, and we purchase as if we plan to use things only a few times.  Nothing can be repaired for less than it costs to purchase a replacement.  This behavior is not limited to our purchases, either, but that is a topic for another day.


I'm happy to say that the only thing I purchased during my visit is something I've been meaning to get for months but couldn't find at the local shops.  I suppose that explains my compulsion yesterday to go there.  It is a sad statement for me however, because it was a replacement for something that still works reasonably well.