Mall Outlet Apology

I'd like to apologize for that last post. Enough of you complained and I heard you. So let me just say a few things and we can get on with the blog.

Look, a mall outlet is a beautiful thing. I've gone to mall outlets once or twice, perhaps even taking an evening to peruse the mall outlets. Never drinking, I nevertheless get a rush akin to intoxication at the multifaceted vendor complex of even an average suburban mall. And the workers are so kind: Shaped like squids to me, almost, because of my peculiar mental disposition, their emanant grunts I find satisfactory and even polite. One goes to a mall complex for an experience; a mall outlet all the more so. It's a beautiful experience and I didn't mean to offend anyone. That Sugar Foot Rub flyer was real. And yet, in my rush to create a story, I invented a facsimile as a vessel for my writerly machinations and I hereby apologize.

The Mall Outlet

I received the flyer for a "Sugar Foot Rub" in the mail after arriving by bus at my home. There was a free massage that the flyer promised. The only "rub" is that for my freedom from cost on this account, I would have no respite from cost on the rub itself. At the mall a mile from my house, this sugar foot rub would no doubt be pleasant and exfoliating. So, having little else to oblige me that night but my precious books, I figured I had no choice, and immediately got into my luxury sedan.

I walked from the parking lot to the mall's entrance in sunny spirits, despite the dismal gray of an evening, a continuous rain having only ceased in the last hour. The sunshine in my heart did not warm all the way to my extremities, but I put my hands in my pockets, the better to resist beggars and thieves and cold, unfeeling others, and walked into the mall of commerce.

I have a pathological fear of maps at malls so every mall is an adventure to me, its own special maze. But that's another story for another occasion. Whatever the cause, for twenty minutes, I wandered around the mall, like Moses. At seven I reached the mall outlet I'd sought, this "Sugar Foot Rub" of published legend. I wondered where I'd heard about its pleasant, exfoliating effects, or how I'd even decided to make my way here.