Locating Mall Facilities
by Mr.e
This sucker was big, huge even by today’s standards.
Patrons of this mall could have been well served by being equipped with a
handheld PMPS (Personal Mall Positioning System), the shoppers equivalent
to the backcountry hikers best friend, a GPS (Global Positioning System).
But I wasn’t even thinking about that when I walked through one of the
thousand doors accessing this shopping mecca. I just wanted to find a decent
spatula.
As I ventured deeper into the palace of glitzy consumerism, I realized that
this temple of stuff might be as familiar to the majority of shoppers as their
own homes. Minus of course the bright shiny new things that assault the eye
at regular intervals, mesmerizing music tuning the befuddled masses into the
spending frequency, a cunning effort designed to separate the weak from their
fluid assets.
Thousands of shoppers corralled in the brightly-lit food courts, milling about
the mall maze, frantically exercise their pocketbooks, wallets, plastic and
cash in an effort to appease the ‘stuff gods’. Others riding up
and then down in glass-encased elevators or gliding up and down endless chains
of escalators in a bid to visit every floor and to see everything that is
offered up for sale.
Not a few of these mall patrons have one thing in common. They’re looking
for the ‘other’ washroom, the one that is not adjacent the food-court.
The one that someone said was over by … "Gees, which department
store was that again…?"
It’s pretty darned frustrating to feel the call of nature and realizing,
if you’re familiar with that particular mall model that the nearest known
washroom is on the other side of the maze. It might as well be on the other
side of the continent for the convenience it withholds.
Getting there in a timely fashion as dictated by need provides yet another
challenge. This is where the PMPS (Personal Mall Positioning System) device
would come in real handy, indicating via discrete bleeps or blips the location
of the nearest ‘facility’.
Some malls provide scooters or walkers to those who feel daunted by the challenge
of negotiating its vaulted expanses. Why can’t they address the simple
problem of finding a washroom.
Your local movie theatre has more washrooms — or at least boasts more
stalls — than the local mall has squeezed into the claustrophobic space
set aside for washrooms that serve only those who actually find them.
With my bladder instantly tuned into the panicked call of nature, all thoughts
of a decent spatula banished, replaced by an urgency so great, even the bright
twinkly lights dimmed as I scanned (in tunnel vision) for that familiar washroom
person symbol.
Pretty much willing to dial 911 by this stage, I caught a fleeting glimpse
of the grail of my quest appearing out of the haze of the surrounding advertising
collage. At this point it had an almost hallucinogenic affect and it took
me a few moments to register that oh so familiar and overly ‘tiny’
washroom sign with a most helpful arrow pointing the way!
I rushed over there as quickly as circumstance allowed, feeling like I’d
just discovered a secret passage in a really difficult computer game. Actually
I’d walked right past the ‘secret hallway’ three times no less.
I’m convinced that it was the only washroom facility in the entire building!
I implore all future building design enthusiasts to seriously consider increasing
the number of ‘facilities’ in these megalithic shrines to consumerism.
Or at the very least add a few Port-a-Potties in strategic places.