Tiny Thoughts

I had the unfortunate experience of going to a mall on a weekday. I had to get my glasses fixed. I can see ok without my glasses. But the poorer vision does kind of help create a waking dream state. As I was waiting to get my glasses fixed (which took twice as long, because the salesperson forgot to give my glasses to a technician, even after I explained I had a plane to catch), I walked around the mall to kill some time.

I looked into some of the vacant stores. (They expanded this mall to add new stores, yet there are now about ten vacant stores.) I thought about renting one of the vacant stores. And keeping it vacant. I would open the store every day and sit behind the counter. I assume people would wander in. My motivation was all the carts selling completely meaningless junk. And the stores selling completely meaningless junk. And everyone wandering around on a weekday, looking at buying completely meaningless junk. There should be laws against having stores in malls open on any day but Saturday (or Sunday if you are Jewish).

Then I started thinking bigger. Why just have one empty store? Why not build an entire shopping center, and have all the stores be empty stores? I could build it in the middle of some super high end suburb like Barrington, Illinois. It could be open 24/7, as empty stores sell nothing, and don't violate my no weekday rule.

It would be like the pet rock of malls. Maybe it would start a revolution. People swarming to the mall of empty stores. Maybe people would even start talking to each other again. Better yet, maybe they would draw on the walls, in the spirit of cave paintings.