The Shoppers At The Northeast Mall Need To Eat More Of Aunt Annie's Pretzels To Get To A Proper Inflation Level

Northeast Mall's Under-Inflated Shoppers

I am not a fan of walking around in a mall. It has been several years since I've last done so in Texas, and that would have been at the Ridgmar Mall in West Fort Worth.

Today, for reasons we need not discuss, I found myself in the Northeast Mall in Hurst.

Walking all over the Northeast Mall in Hurst I soon found myself thinking that there were way more under-inflated people than I am used to seeing in Texas.

Not quite the number of under-inflated people I see when I visit states to the west of Texas, but way more under-inflated people than I see when I visit my neighborhood Wal-Mart, where way too many people look as if they've been over-inflated to the point where they are in danger of exploding.

If the throngs crowding into the Northeast Mall today are indicative of America when the economy is not doing well, I don't know if I want to be anywhere near a mall when the American economy goes back in to BOOM mode.

And have Aunt Annie's pretzels greatly improved since I last had one, years ago, at the Grapevine Mills mall? The line at Aunt Annie's was 20 to 30 people long. Waiting for a pretzel.

Hot, Lost & Malled In West Fort Worth

I had to be in West Fort Worth, on the 6th floor of a building just off University, this afternoon at 2. When I arrived at my destination, I was quick to realize I'd been given erroneous information.

I called Google Location Information and was given the correct location, which was a couple miles further west, near the Ridgmar Mall. I found the proper location, did what I had to do, then, looking at the Ridgmar Mall, I realized I had never been in it.

That, and I could not remember the last time I had been in a mall. I had been in the Sears store at the Ridgmar Mall before, years ago, to pick up a riding lawnmower, but never in the mall. I know it'd been totally remodeled since the lawnmower pickup.

So, I parked by the Rave Motion Theater. I think that is what it is called. Movies cost $9.50 now? I really need to get out more. Most movies I would not watch if you paid me $9.50 an hour to do so, but I digress.

So, I walked into the mall. Ridgmar is a 2 story mall. It does not look that high from the outside. By the time I was about 10 minutes in, I realized I'd made the same mistake I'd make before in a Texas mall, as in not paying attention to where I had entered. But it was by the theater, how hard could that be to find again? I thought.

My most horrifying getting lost, to a Seinfeldian level of distress in a mall, occurred soon after my Exile in Texas. I was driving a car I was not used to, a loaner, while the main car was having something fixed. I wanted to check out the infamous Galleria in Dallas. One of the biggest malls in the world. At the Galleria there are no parking lots. Near as I know. It's all parking garages. And the exits from those parking garages enter the mall at various levels.

So, one is a fool if one is in the Galleria and does not make note of what level one is parked on and what store one entered. I was only half a fool. I knew I'd entered via Neiman-Marcus. The Galleria is a 4 level, or is it 5, mall. It is huge. On the lower level there is a big ice rink, and, if I remember right, a big restaurant, food court zone.

If you saw the late Farrah Fawcett in Dr. T. and the Women, the Galleria is where Farrah decided to take a skinnydip in a fountain. I always liked Farrah, particularly in her later, bare it all years.

Anyway, I wandered all 4 or 5 levels of the Galleria and then I was ready to get out of there. I made my way back to Neiman-Marcus, wandered through the store til I found an exit to the parking garage. I thought I was on the right level. But I could find no car. This was not a car I was used to spotting. It ended up taking me over an hour and an estimated 1,500 calories to find that car.

I have been back to the Galleria one more time. I did not get lost that time. The Galleria is walking distance from, sort of, one of the World's Most Unique McDonalds, in case you are in the neighborhood and craving a Big Mac.