"Have we really gone down this much? I mean, as a society?"

The answer, in my eyes, anyway, is yes.

As much as I complain about the mall, I still always find myself going back.

I don't know why, but I do.

You know, it's quite punny in a way -- "mall" and "maul" -- but it's still one of those things that ends up becoming an "outing".

Anyway, my mom asked me, at the conclusion of the school year, what I wanted as a "moving up" present, as I managed to pass all of my classes, including Advanced Placement Chemistry.

I said, "Why don't we do a day trip to the mall?"

Well, here's my problem: they ruined the mall.

Now, when I refer to “them”, I am speaking specifically of the trendoids. I know, I make that sound like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, but it’s true.

When I go to the mall, there are certain stores I avoid. The “trendy” clothing stores. It’s not that they’re bad stores; I just don’t like the clothes they sell.

One of my favorite stores in the mall was a store called F.Y.E. (“For Your entertainment”). They had everything. Obscure Role Playing Video Games, Anime, Manga, Movies, Music of every genre -- they had it all. Anyway, they went and renovated their store. So, my mom and I went in to see what it was like.

The guy at the door gave us some coupons and flyers. I walk over to the anime “section” -- it was really only one shelving unit running half the length of the store -- to see if they have any manga. (Manga is, for lack of a better description, Japanese comic books, usually in the form of graphic novels.) I don’t see any. So my mom walks over, and asks the girl, “Do you have any graphic novels?” The girl replies, “You mean like books? To read?” So I cut in with, “You know, Manga?” ...and her eyes sort of glaze over. “It looks like a novel, but it’s really comics. It’s like the anime,” I declare, pointing at the shelf behind me. “Oh, those. We sent those back. We don’t sell those anymore.”

So we walked out. And mom literally threw the coupons back at the guy. She thrust them back into the little pile in his hand.

...and that’s just the one store.

Over the past couple of months, all of the stores in which I used to shop; the stores in which I could wander aimlessly looking at merchandise... they’ve all gone mainstream. They’ve all sold out.

Non-conformists are really conformists; they conform to not conforming.