Things Called Malls

There is a mall, and I went to it. It was a big collection of shops. Like a strip mall, only all indoors. Puzzling, but true. And the security people say it's not ok to ride your bike inside, even though it's a long way between stores. There were fat people and ugly people, and most everyone looked the same. I quickly realized that my quest for obnoxiously loud dress pants was best pursued online. Pants at the mall only come in three colors: blue, khaki, and yawn.

I amused myself with private performances. I did one on imaginative aristocracy, which mostly consisted of imagining that all the people in the mall were my peasants on a festival day, come to the specially constructed communal center to buy their annual supplies and find wives. Also did a scatological investigation of arab-western cultural juxtaposition, which involved standing on the seat and squatting arab-style. It left satisfyingly inexplicable footprints on the seat, which paired nicely with the imaginary mathematical formulae I scrawled on the toilet paper. I did some minor ogling too, but it had little artistic merit.

I'm a Unicorn and I Make Twenty-six Dollars an Hour

I heard the most amazing sentence ever spoken by a human being at the open mike at the vegan place. A "poet" was reading a poem entitled "20 Reasons I Hate Unicorns," which mostly involved blaming unicorns for life's minor inconveniences. A grizzled gray-bearded homeless-looking guy completely freaked out and delivered this rant:

My boss makes unicorns he makes a million dollars a year what do you make? don't talk shit about unicorns man, you ain't making nothing. get up there and talk shit about unicorns when my boss makes a million dollars a year. we wear these shirts with unicorns on the shoulder at work, man. I'm a unicorn and I make twenty-six dollars an hour what do you make?