July 28th
What is a band to do when they have a check-out time of 11:00am and a load-in time of 9:00pm? Why, go to the mall of course!
The afternoon of July 28th found us walking through the muggy heat of Minneapolis toward the doors of the Mall of America, the second-largest mall on the continent. We spent the day watching people riding the rollercoasters, poking our heads into stores to look at earrings and nail polish, commenting on modern fashion, and buying various edibles such as frozen yogurt, cheese curds, coffee, fries and bourbon chicken. I have always been a mall rat of sorts: when we were kids, my mom took my three siblings and me to the Galleria on rainy days to ride the escalators for hours. Ever since, I’ve enjoyed window shopping, mall-walking, and, for a brief period in my life, bargain-hunting.
However, it has been a few months since I had been to a mall, and the whole experience, while fun, sat wrong with me. My views on consumerism have considerably darkened since last I walked through a maze of retail. I have gotten less understanding of parents who buy designer jeans for their children, and girls who feel that they need to give their wardrobe an overhaul every season. The American Girl Doll hair salon was almost nauseating, and even the Lego store, as I acknowledged the wonder of their twenty-foot sculptures, struck a bitter note in my gut.
Perhaps this is a reaction to my upbringing of secondhand toys and hand-me-down clothes— maybe some part of me is jealous that I never got new legos and dolls and frilly name-brand skirts. Or perhaps, in addition, this is my own unusual version of materialism surfacing again. Whereas most people (it seems) are tempted to draw worth from what they have, I am always fighting against finding my worth in what I don’t have. It’s a strange brand of snobbery that shows up in indie, hipster and hippie circles, but rarely anywhere else. “I wonder how much that girl spent on those ridiculous shoes. Good thing I’m above that sort of thing!” This point of view feels noble at the time, but it doesn’t stop to consider the joy that the girl finds in those ridiculous shoes. Perhaps it’s the same kind of joy I find in wearing a skirt that has a nice twirl to it. Dressing ugly is not a virtue, and neither is being cheap.
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| Tyler rescued this pizza; someone was going to pitch it! |
And so the inner struggle against yet another form of pride continues. Money should not be an idol in any way, and that means I have no right to judge whether or not someone else is spending money wisely. If I can keep track of myself and my consumerism or lack thereof, that’s more than enough for me to handle.
~Lisa Shafter
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