Jerry Timms

Lately for the last few months it seems like none of my friends ever want to do anything during the day, or on Sundays at all for that matter. So one of my usual activities on Sunday afternoons has been going shopping at one of the local malls. It’s a little more than just a quick shopping trip, as it usually turns into a whole afternoon of cruising around, eating lunch and browsing through some merchandise. The mall is actually a great place to go by yourself, because where else can you spend hours walking around entertaining yourself by doing virtually nothing? It’s better than staying home and watching t.v. (or wasting hours on the internet), and it gets me out of the house and forces me into a little bit of human interaction. Seriously…what else am I going to do?

Usually I go to Scottsdale Fashion Square, but today I went to Arizona Mills because I wanted to get some cologne (my V-Day present to myself) at one of the fragrance outlets. While I was eating lunch I had some time to think about my mall trip activities, and came up with this favorites list.

Some of my favorite things to do at the mall:

1. Shop. I know, I know, you think this is really obvious. But usually when there’s something I need to buy, I am in and out of a store relatively quickly. Lately however, I’m learning the fine art of shopping…which for me has started to involve talking to sales people, trying on things I wouldn’t typically buy, buying something I didn’t necessarily need or want, and evaluating new styles and fashion trends. One of the stores I like to shop at lately has been Sephora…the sales people there are really friendly to chat with and are more than happy to let me try all kinds of different fragrances and skin products. One thing I recently found out is that they’ll give you a sample of any fragrance…even if they don’t have a pre-packaged sample, they’ll make one for you.

2. Check out hot guys. What, no surprise here either? Well, one thing you can find at the mall that you don’t normally see at the bars or clubs are hot young DILFs. Ha, seriously…lots of them. Here’s one I stalked today. I think he was totally on to me – aiming my iPhone at him with my mouth hanging open may have given it away – but who cares, you know?

3. Gawk at puppies. Every mall has one of those damn puppy stores. I’m totally against puppy farms, and pedigreed dogs and all that, but they are so cute! I would never buy a puppy anywhere except for the pound, but it’s fun to go look at them at the mall because you don’t see puppies this tiny and young at the pound. Here’s one I was hanging out with today – usually they don’t even notice people anymore outside the glass, but this one liked me and posed for a picture!

4. Eat. Panda Express is actually my favorite food, and the mall is the only place I can really get it. Sometimes I get cookies too, and totally pig out. Again, who cares?

I haven’t been to Arizona Mills in a very long time, but Scottsdale Fashion Square is still my favorite. It was really funny today and I was cracking myself up, because Arizona Mills is very…urban. “Urban” is the code I use with my friends to describe a certain type of demographic (Jerry and I took this from an old Dana Carvey SNL skit). So I started telling myself today that I probably shouldn’t stereotype as much as I do..and just as I was thinking about that, I started to notice that there were alarms going off in almost every store that I passed by! And every 10 minutes or so, I would see security guards questioning and apprehending shoppers that had apparently just stolen something. Ha, so there you go…my urban shopping experience…complete with DILF stalking, adorable puppies, fried rice and cookies, and rampant petty theft!