In an effort to avoid Halloween, I do what anyone with lucky
ruby slippers would do - I walk right the hell into it.
A friend and I decide to spend Halloween returning her
recent coat purchase to Eddie Bauer in the Burlington Mall. We park as close to Eddie Bauer as we can
(the store, not the person), anticipating a relatively easy in-and-out. We plan it this way because she has a bum
knee and I have a bum bum (starting to suspect sciatica, but that's not nearly
as much fun as claiming that I broke my own ass), so walking semi-long
distances is a challenge.
We enter the mall at Legal Seafoods only to discover that
Eddie Bauer, usually situated directly parallel, has moved. We locate a mall map then quickly decipher
that the drawing at eye level is a map of the upstairs (where we are not), and
the drawing at ankle level, where no woman wearing a skirt nor having knee
and/or ass issues should ever have to stoop, is of the ground level (where we
think we are), We have little difficulty
locating the backlit block that represents Eddie Bauer's new and improved
location, however we cannot seem to locate where on the map we truly are. It takes us a few minutes, but eventually
after retracing our steps and panicking, we figure out which door we entered,
you know, the door marked by the giant sticker on the map that says, "Yo,
bitch, you be HERE. Dumbass."
Limping to the left, we start making our way toward Macy's,
the most visible anchor store near the newly-relocated Bauer store. It is at this point that my sore glut and my
eyeballs synch up: I am either dancing The Time Warp … Again, or it's
Trick-or-Treating at the mall for Halloween.
Since I don't see Dr. Frank-N-Furter (but I do see several teenaged
girls in fishnets and dressed like drag queens - not sure if these are costumes
or not), I assume that my friend and I are not dancing tonight. Good thing, because in case you forgot
already, she has a bum knee and I broke my own ass.
After surviving the Eddie Bauer experience and leaving
without buying anything with the wad of returned credit that now clings to my
friend's debit card, we maneuver around costumed munchkins and their
sometimes-costumed parents, and we head to the food court. We are just about the only people there, and
as we sit in a central but unoccupied location, we note that there are maybe a
dozen other people in the food court with us, and half of them are
employees. We sit down and start
people-watching.
Many of the people we encounter are either really young
children just starting kindergarten or ramped-up, hormone-addled tweens looking
for the Love Shack, but all of them are in search of the perfect store-score of
candy as they move from one shop to another.
Then the trouble starts.
First, the feeding tube sits next to us. I don't mind feeding tubes; I've watched
several close family members endure some rather heathen medical procedures, but
truly, I'm eating here. The rest of the food court seating is wide
open. Why here? It's the same feeling I get when I'm in an
empty movie theater or on an empty bus and someone comes and sits down right
next to me. I am surprised by their
juxtaposition to our table when so many others with more privacy and comfort
are open. And yes, I will admit, seeing
a feeding tube again does give me the willies.
Then Gray Moccasin Woman arrives. Grey Moccasin Woman is wearing a midi-length
black jersey dress, black leggings stretched out to the nth degree, and
grayish, tannish, fringe-edged, full-blown, Native American moccasins. We place bets on whether or not this is a
work outfit or a Halloween costume gone horribly wrong.
While we argue, Braid Lady enters and starts pacing the
perimeter with a crown of straggly woven hairpieces twined along her cranium
like the orbits of all Neptune's moons. Once Braid Lady sits in a seat, my friend and
I recon the perimeter in a veiled attempt to see exactly what the hell this
mystery woman has growing out of her brain.
It turns out not to be hair at all but some kind of giant pipe-cleaner
spider - Yes, she has a huge arachnid stuck to her dome. We decide that dinner at the food court will
best be enjoyed if we start singing in between bites of food, "La la la la
la, I can't SEE you!"
The coup de gras, however, is waiting for us back at the
entrance, back where we began, back in front of Legal Seafoods. As we round the corner, dodging little
munchkins and people of all ages in costumes along with them, we notice someone
snapping pictures into the window of Legal.
He is bent over, camera phone ready, snapping snapping snapping snapping
away before disappearing back inside the restaurant.
I cannot control myself.
Oh, you people know I try; I really, really try, but it's just not in
the stars for me. I'm like Fred
Flintstone with the Schleprock of bad luck hanging over my head and following
my every move. I … must … look … into …
the … window. I am compelled. I cannot stop myself.
There on the other side of the glass, sitting perfectly
still, holding a knife in her hand and leaning toward the window pane, is a
life-like witch taking up a prime table spot, staring out with her wicked eyes
over the shoppers who file by the main entrance. I pull out my phone and snap a picture,
hoping to do so incognito. I mean, no
one but my friend needs to know I'm taking … SHIT. Suddenly, right after I press the enter
button on my phone, a face fills the seat opposite the witch and grins out at
me like the Cheshire Cat. Okay, so he's
actually more like the GQ model edition of the Cheshire Cat. I realize that it's the guy who had just been
taking the witch's picture, and he is smirking at me with my camera-phone like
he has just pulled off the greatest prank ever and I am his first
victim.
I start blushing and wave, clearly bagged, and he waves
back. So I wave some more, and he waves
some more. Then my friend breaks the
spell and pulls me to safety away from GQ Man and, more importantly, away from the
embarrassment of being caught taking a picture through a restaurant window like
a freakin' peeping tom.
So our Epic Plan turns into an Epic Fail -- We do not avoid
the trick-or-treaters at all; in fact, they're two-fold more than if we'd just
stayed at our respective homes and pretended to hand out candy while we
unwrapped and ate it all piece by piece.
Also, I probably got myself onto some kind of Mall Security Blacklist
for Window Offenders by getting the photo of the weird dinner party.
But it's all good because we found Eddie Bauer, we didn't
have to cook dinner, and we got the attention (albeit this time very much
unwanted) of a GQ Man. All in all, I
think we got the "treat" end of this deal.
