I guess I should not be surprised by this. As I have headed more toward intimacy in my relationship with the earth, local food sources, sustainability, and all those other peak oil-related activities, I have found that I have little use for the small cities called "shopping malls".

But I am, among many other things, a proud cheapskate. So, when a coupon for a free sandwich showed up at my door, I decided to go get it. It was a place buried inside the "Food Court" of one of our more highly-touted shopping malls...doesn't have a Nordstrom, but does have the Macy's and a few other big names.

But I could not do it. It was bad enough as I walked through the mall
to get to the "food court". Because it was raining, I parked in the
parking garage, which meant I entered through Macy's. Almost passed
out from the chemicals in the air near the cosmetics counters...people
PAY to smell like that??? Ugh. My stomach was a bit bothered by
that, but I hoped it would dissipate.

The mall was relatively uncrowded, but even with the small number of
patrons, it was still loud - walls to contain the sound and all the
surfaces were hard. The presence of potted plants served merely to
emphasize that the apparent purpose of the whole place was to erect
barriers between the people and the earth, both physically and
metaphysically. Huge marble-looking walls, buttresses and fortresses
all, seemingly to indicate power or wealth, huge demonstrations of
mankind's ability to use vast quantities of energy to shape and mold
perfectly natural materials into things that look artificial (shudder).

Then the "food court" itself...plastic tables, stuff in steam tables,
people drinking from foam cups, spooning out edibles from foam trays
and then thinking of just how much environmental impact all this stuff
must have when it gets thrown away. And with this lack of concern
about the junk that the food would be served on, what about the
chemical content of the food itself?

As I stood in line, I simply could not bring myself to consider
anything served there to qualify as food...and even if I could, the
environment itself was so much like a scene from a futuristic "science
fiction noir" movie that I just wanted to escape. I gave my coupon to
the woman in line in front of me (she had three kids with her, so I
figured she could use the help) and left.

Believe me, one thing I will NOT miss when TSHTF is the "shopping mall
experience".

Dave in Oregon

I didn't know that.