I suppose it started sometime after I stopped, working in a shopping mall that is.

I recently took a look back at my life around 1990-2000, in which my identity was stamped into a ribbon by a barely-functional label maker. The treks to the food court to consume food which is only now kicking me in the rear. That rayon-polyester smell that never, ever seemed to fade. Upon reflection, I realized that I have an incredible disdain for department stores that remains with me to this day, specifically the monolithic dinosaurs that reside in many shopping malls.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with any specific store/brand per se. I have no particular qualms with the Hudson’s Bay Co., or Sears or Walmart or what have you. It’s the actual physical structures themselves that have managed to foster a growing revulsion within me. So I suppose that makes this more of a gripe about mall architecture moreso than anything else. Walk into one – any one at all – and it’ll strike you immediately; this is exactly the same building that you visited as a child (experiences in your area may vary of course). The tiles, the floor, carpet, walls, even the shade of artificial light that soaks each floor is exactly the same as it was in the 1980′s, when 256 shades of beige defined an entire palette of color. Even the sounds are the same. Any time I hear Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good”, I cringe just a wee bit.

Mall designs rival casinos in their ability to trap customers inside and force them to wander around until something catches their attention. No clocks, no windows to the outside, minimal straight pathways from end to end. Get them inside, keep them inside. The next time you’re inside, see how many seconds it takes you before you can turn 360 degrees and not be able to see which way is out. Even the escalators are a trap. Sure they pair them together; one up, one down. However, they alternate between floors so that in order to traverse more than one [floor], you have to wander through more merchandise (design, schmesign, there’s got to be any number of ways to accommodate this).

As if the above weren’t enough to induce a degree of sensory aversion, there’s also the insanity of the December shopping season. Grandmas turn rabid, sock and/or underwear retailers roll in mountains of money, parking lots turn into… parking lots. Malls become even more wretched at this time of year, as retailers everywhere deploy the ultimate Jedi Mind Trick, convincing consumers that they’re getting a much better deal than math and statistics would have you believe. It takes a bit of time after busy holiday season (which I refer to as “the Shopocalypse”) to wind down, for things to revert back to a relative state of calm. No more retina-burning LED decorations, disinterested mall Santas, or endless loops of “Silent Night” by Boyz II Men.

On a final note, I discovered that I’m not the only one who has this particular affliction. A quick Google search led me to Jeremy Michaels’ blog post on just this very idea: Department Store Phobia