50 Things To Do At A Mall


- Ride mechanical horses with coins fished out of the reflecting pond.

- Try pants on backwards at the Gap. Ask the salesperson if they make your butt look big.

- Dial 900 numbers from demonstration phones in Radio Shack.

- Sneeze on the sample tray at Hickory Farms and helpfully volunteer to consume its now unwanted contents.

- At the bottom of an escalator, scream "MY SHOELACES! AAAGH!"

- Ask the sales personnel at the music store whether inflated CD prices are in pesos or rubles.

- Teach pet store parrots new vocabulary that makes them unsalable.

- Stomp on ketchup packets at Burger King...

- ...but save a few to slurp on as snacks. Tell people that they're "astronaut food".

- Follow patrons of B. Dalton's around while reading aloud from Dianetics.

- Ask mall cops for stories of World War I.

- Ask a salesman why a particular TV is labeled black and white and insist that it's a color set. When he disagrees, give him a strange look and say, "You mean you really can't see it?"

- Construct a new porch deck in the tool department of Sears.

- Wear pancake makeup and new clothes and pose as a fashion dummy in clothes departments, occasionally screaming without warning.

- Test mattresses in your pajamas.

- Ask the tobaccanist if his hovercraft is full of eels.

- If you're patient, stare intently into a surveillance camera for an hour while rocking from side to side.

- Sprint up the down escalator.

- Stare at static on a display TV and challenge other shoppers whether they, too, can see the "hidden picture".

- Ask appliance personnel if they have any TVs that play only in Spanish.

- Make unusual requests at the Piercing Pagoda.

- Ask a salesperson in the hardware department how well a particular saw cuts through bone.

- At the pet store, ask if they have bulk discounts on gerbils, and whether there's much meat on them.

- Hula dance by the demonstration air conditioner.

- Ask for red-tinted lenses at the optometrist.

- Sneak up on saleswomen at the perfume counter and spray them with your own bottle of Eau de Swanke.

- Rummage through the jelly bean bin at the candy store, insisting that you lost a contact lens.

- Ask a saleswoman whether a particular shade of panties matches the color of your beard.

- In the changing rooms, announce in a sing-song voice, "I see London, I see France..."

- Leave on the plastic string connecting a new pair of shoes, and wander around the mall taking two-inch steps.

- Play the tuba for change.

- Ask the Hamond Organ dealer if he can play "Jesus Built My Hotrod".

- Record belches on electronic sampling keyboards, and perform gastric versions of Jingle Bells for admiring onlookers.

- Ask the pharmacist at the drugstore which leading cold remedy will "give you a really wicked buzz".

- Ask the personnel at Pier 1 Imports whether they have any "giant crap made out of straw".

- "Toast" plastic gag hot dogs in front of the fake fireplace display.

- Collect stacks of paint brochures and hand them out as religious tracts.

- Ask the information desk for a stroller, and someone to push you around in it.

- Change every TV in the electronics department to a station showing "Saved by the Bell". Chant the dialogue in a robotic voice, and scream if anyone tries to switch channels on one of the sets.

- Hang out in the waterbed section of the furniture department wearing a Navy uniform. Occasionally run around in circles yelling "scratch one flat-top!"

- Hand a stack of pants back to the changing room attendant and scornfully announce that none of them are "leakproof".

- "Play" the demo modes of video games at the arcade. Make lots of explosion noises.

- Stand transfixed in front of a mirror bobbing your head up and down.

- Pay for all your purchases with two-dollar bills to provoke arguments over whether they're real.

- If it's Christmas, ask the mall Santa to sit on your lap.

- Answer any unattended service phones that ring in department stores and say "Domino's."

- Try on flea collars at the pet store while occasionally pausing to scratch yourself.

- At the stylist, ask to have the hair on your back permed.

- Show people your driver's license and demand to know "whether they've seen this man."

- Buy a jawbreaker from the candy store. Return fifteen minutes later, fish it out of your mouth, and demand to know why it hasn't turned blue yet.





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