Malls having a delightfully numbing affect on people. One can wander for hours through this world of retail splendor; there is always an unnecessary amount of stuff to look at. But before you know it, you’re a mall zombie. You’re just another deal-hunting zombie looking for the newest trends. The mustard-gas strength of the perfume protruding out of Abercrombie and Fitch gives you a high that cannot be paralleled with anything a dealer could sell to you. But if you’re like me, you just liked to hang out there.
My favorite activity during my senior year can be summed up in two words: mall rat. I was a late bloomer; usually the peak of mall rat-ism is freshman to sophomore year. We have all known a mall rat, or at least been able to steal a glimpse at one. There was a different breed of mall rat in my snooty upper middle-class mall of Bedford, NH. They could buy whatever the fuck they wanted. The disheveled homeless man on the curb with an “Obama lied” or “Lynch Obama” sign failed to bring these wealthy people down. People would just honk with a smile and go merrily on there way back to there Mc Mansions.
I was standing in line at Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, mean muggin’ people with my friend Colton when a girl came up from behind him with a hug. She was fifteen, the typical age for a mall rat. She had blonde half-hazard looking hair, adorned with a bright streak of pink that fell to her hips. She looked a lot like Drew Barrymore, only prettier. I wasn’t in the least bit attracted to her, but there was something about her that I was drawn to. “Hi. I’m Elli,” she said with a smile. Her blue-green eyes shone brighter than her smile. I was most struck by the gentle, hippie nature. Everything about her seemed different. “We’re gonna be best friends,” Elli announced in a matter-of-fact tone.
A week later I’m walking up the front steps of her Mc Mansion of a home. In her kitchen I was surprised to find a feminist meeting in session. Elli’s mom let us in and led us to the living room. There was Elli, in nothing but a bra and underwear (spare the brightly colored bracelets that covered her forearms) smoking a cigarette. She was lying on a bear skin rug in the far corner of the room. She seemed deep in thought, as if meditating. When she saw us she smiled and told us to come sit with her. That was the first of many times I’d sit there with her, and just talk for hours. She would tell me how everyone gives off energy and that if we send positive energy into the universe we’d get it back. Elli did every drug imaginable. Everything that came out of her mouth I was fascinated with. She reminded me of pixie..or a drugged out tinker bell.
Elli was a bit of a nymph. She would kiss all of her friends because she said that closeness between friends should not have any limits. Her parents enforced her free spirit; they let her do whatever she wanted. Her parents eventually sent her off to boarding school. She pops back up into my life every now and again.
In high school, I was known as the headphones kid who didn’t give two shits in the ocean about people. But Elli told me not to worry so much and to stop being so pessimistic. She taught me how to free my own mind. I guess not all people who live in Mc Mansions are stuffy and boring.
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