I hate any form of monetary exchange. Especially the ones that involve huge stores, even bigger parking lots, tons of people, nervous clerks, full power air conditioning and lousy elevator music coming from the ceiling.

I hate shopping for any kinds of goods except for cds and books. This is a negative-sides post.

Did you notice how these shopping malls have a certain “death camp” aura going on? They`re always built a little out of the city, they always have these huge halls with nowhere to run to but in the next stall, there`s always a weird smell about them and you always have guards/clerks patrolling the area for any signs of deviant behavious. Spilled milk and such.

I used to work in one of those places a couple of years back. The scarriest part was that we opened at nine and there was already a crowd in front of the door. Like a lynch mob. There was this one guy who at nine o`clock in the morning on saturday walked in, grabbed a television set, paid and left. I wonder what went through his mind that day. “I`m gonna get up, have some breakfast and then I`m gonna buy myself a television“.

Ever noticed how nervous people get when they are in places like that? The fluorescent lights and the speaker-interruptions “Spill in aisle 4!” do not add to the pleasantness of the whole experience. And it`s the same everywhere you go. It`s like there`s a global plan that says how these things should look and so they all follow the same guidelines. “Make the customers feel lost and small“. “Induce needs by shoving useless junk in their face“. “Play crappy music you cannot hear anywhere else“.

Did you know that at least one of the biggest foreign malls in Slovenia is a fire hazard (at least the last time I checked)? They got the system, there`s just no water. Why? Too expensive to keep the pressure. 10 bucks for guessing which one is it. Post in comments.

The best tactic for shopping is blitzkrieg. Or an adaptation of it. It would best work if one would actually have a map of the place, scout out the location and mark the targets and then just ran through, pushing stuff into the cart. Time from insertion to extraction….ten minutes. But running through the mall and keeping your eyes down will do the same. Too much stuff. That`s the problem. Fat chicks, deciding whether to drink milk which only has 1,5 fat content or the one which has 0,5 fat content. Or maybe switch to water entirely and just dip a chunk of butter in for the fat effect. Kids running around, checking out the sweets department. Moms choosing between Calvo and Safcol when in reality, you are left without choices. Men checking out bikes and television sets, not really knowing what the hell are they doing in here anyway. There`s a general apathy feeling floating around.

Of course people get nervous and stressed in places like these. There`s a whole new movement that claims going into the malls (especially on sundays) is a way some of these people socially interact. Yes, some go to the movies, theater… others go shopping. We`re at the peak of our culture and civilization, ya all! We are swapping Shakespeare for tampons! Altman for juice! Eastwood for toast!

And it`ll only get worse. More people, more stuff, bigger places…until you`ll have a country called “The Mall” and everybody will go there. Or the whole world will be a mall, with people sleeping in tiny boxes among the shelves. Truman show meet Matrix meet No logo. We`re all stars now…in the shop show.