Mall Rats R Us

The five girls and I braved the mall the week before Christmas to spend the gift card Millie earned last year. The last time we stepped into the mall, apart from the infamous visit with G&G Owen, was when Millie spent a gift card two years ago. Please tell me how smart I am for choosing this time, of all times, to herd five socially starved children through the halls of Consumer Heaven. My lands, was it fun...

It actually was fun for the first few hours. It was fun until the tail end, when the cashier at CVS didn't give us the Free Box of Chocolates from the buy-one-get-one-FREE deal, and I had to spend money after Millie's card didn't cover it. It was fun until I discovered the error and returned to have her refund the cash I'd given, and Piper chose that moment to unleash her 4-hours-past-naptime (extremely negative) energy. It was fun until the cashier, instead of giving me back the excess cash that I'd given her, inexplicably chose to put in all on a MALL GIFT CARD instead. It was fun until she looked at me like I was an Amish woman come to life because.. "It took me a year to come to the mall to spend THIS gift card! Why in the name of all that's good would I want another one?!!"

It was fun until she sent me to the mall office to see what they could do for me as I manfully tried to be calm with an increasingly ill-mannered two-year old while resisting the urgent need to spank her and/or pound my head against a wall. It was fun until the kind woman in the mall office told me, after 20 minutes, that there was nothing she could do because the gift card wouldn't "go through" for another 24 hours.

"Why don't you come back, then," she said with a sympathetic smile.

______________________________

Dear Mall,

We will see you next year.
You wish.

Conflicted love,
Amish Abigail
___________________________


Before the milk soured, I tried to get a picture of my stairsteps.

Try one:



Try two:




Try three:



PIP!!!!


Millie took a picture of Luci and I.
Yup, I'm dorky. Even Luci thinks so...



We gawked at life-size, life-like Santas (Sinterklaases, Saint Nicholases, Father Christmases, Weihnachtsmannes) and ranked them in order of preference.



We stifled the urge to jump over white chains.



We SAT ON SANTA'S LAP! Oh, yes we did! While only Piper was brave enough to actually sit on his lap, the rest of us stood around him and sang "Jingle Bells." This was a first for any of our girls, and I have no picture because I'm a skinflint and would not pay $15.

I do have this picture, though. Susannah giggled a lot while Santa chatted with us, and afterward she kept creeping back to the corner to stare at him with other children (whose parents, doubtless, happily spent $100 for pictures of their precious babes nestled in the lap of a strange old man).




The very last thing we did after the CVS debacle was use our free ice cream coupons. Thanks again, Grandma O. That alone put a sweet taste back into the experience.

They all had to swap tastes.


This is how you reel us in, mall. Gift cards and ice cream, every time...



Piper has ice cream melting in her lap.




Still melting...




PIP!!!!