I’m all over the shop
Isuffer from a debilitating, borderline hateful, disdain for shopping malls. On a random Tuesday, a few weeks ago, I found myself at The Pavilion in Durban, my mother by my side. After a torturous two hours, we were headed for Entrance 14 towards the roof parking when she realised that she needed the ablution facilities.
Twenty-three minutes later I was still waiting for her to emerge from the toilet-bound tunnel she’d disappeared into. It turns out she’d lost track of the number of stairs she’d descended to get there and had spent a while trying to retrace her steps.
Now, my mother is a master shopper, having spent most of the waking hours of her adult life in retail spaces. In a shopping mall, she’s in her element. I remember thinking on that Tuesday afternoon that if a champion shopper like her could get lost, what hope is there for Homo erectus like me, who navigates through life sans GPS like Moses belligerently zigzagging across the Sinai desert.
One of my earliest memories outside of my Mpumalanga Township, Hammarsdale, neighbourhood involves Hill Street in Pinetown. My tiny hand firmly clasped by my mother’s, we would whizz from one location to the next. Our shopping trip would inevitably commence at Trust Bank, bank book and withdrawal slip in hand.
Then there’d be the long walk to Maudmary’s to fit some shoes. Afterwards, with a trolley laden with groceries, we would walk for what felt like an eternity towards Clicks to get toiletries and, of course, the pinnacle of my Saturday morning, the weighing out of chocolate-coated sweets by the kilogram.
If she opted to shop in the Durban CBD, the trip would also involve a visit to the Ajmeri Arcade to get fitted out in some new pants. A further foray to the Indian
Market to stock up on wet masala, curry leaves and clove sticks. By the time we boarded the Pinetown-bound Olympic bus I’d be munching on bhajias, samoosa crumbs stuck to my glistening cheeks, while coughing between taking sips of guava juice through a plastic straw.
Fast-forward 40 years and my children have had a markedly different experience. We have shopping malls now. Gargantuan behemoths. Soulless. Grotesque mega warehouses. And just like their first cousins, the casinos, no windows. It’s obviously much easier to blow school fees, electricity and life savings on the perfect Louis Vuitton Neverfull bag with PVC-coated Vachetta trim when you can’t see trees, birds and
As I drive into the parking lot, I look around frantically at the signage. I repeat it five times, the way I do my Hail Marys: ‘Block H. Level B6. Entrance 3’
desperate humans rummaging through garbage bins for half-eaten pizza slices.
In my almost 50 years of life, I have yet to master the intricate labyrinth that is any shopping mall’s geography. I start panicking as soon as I spot the imposing cement structure dominating the skyline, blocking out the sun and growling menacingly at me. As I drive into the parking lot, I look around frantically at the signage. “OK. Block H. Level B6. Entrance 3.” And then I repeat it five times, the way I do my Hail Marys: “Block H. Level B6. Entrance 3.”
The moment I go through the entrance of the mall I feel like a baby king penguin being let loose inside a colony of other penguins, all of us wearing black-and-white tuxedos and orange bow ties. I feel like my identity and name are checked at the door like my bags at the SAA counter. Like, for the duration of my stay, the security office personnel refer to me as “Customer 2,344 from Block H, Level B6, Entrance 3.”
About 25 minutes into any solo foray into the mall I go, “Will you look at the time! It’s Exit O’Clock already.” This always coincides with mild panic at the realisation that I now have to retrace my steps back to the car. Yes, I remember walking past this Samsung shop. Yep, I walked past a lingerie shop. Hang on, I don’t remember walking past this fellow harassing folks into getting forced massages. But it doesn’t matter because I committed everything to memory. I’m in Block B. Level H3. Entrance 6. No, wait. That’s Block 6. Level B3. Entrance H. No, hang on. Entrance B. Level H6 …
In the end, I’ll always be that guy sheepishly following a security guard around, parking ticket in hand, being led to my car after handing the guard a R20 bribe to keep him from yelling, “So, you’re lost then, sir?”