The other day I went to the mall. I hate the mall. Hate. It. Even on a Monday at high noon the parking lot was packed and there were people everywhere - shoppers, high school kids having lunch at the food court. It stresses me out.
The worst part of the mall, actually, is the endless hawking of useless expensive junk. As I passed one salon-type place, a particularly aggressive salesman practically accosted me and convinced me to come in his store "just for one minute" to show me a "great product." I walked in and he started curling my hair with a flat iron and fired off compliments of my looks so fast I figured he must have memorized a handbook, and in an accent so thick I had to ask him to repeat himself several times. Then he tried to sell me the iron for $150. When I said no thank you his voice dropped to a whisper and he offered it to me for $120, like it was our special secret. When I said NO THANK YOU he got in my face and asked "What's the problem?!" and I said I just didn't want it and got the hell out of there.
I spent the rest of the day with and icky feeling and three perfectly curled ringlets on the right side of my face. God, I hate the mall.
It was such a contrast to earlier that morning. I went running and looped through the neighborhood, ending up in a park with a prairie restoration area that had recently been burned. As I ran by the blackened vegetation I saw movement. Four wild turkeys were pecking in the burnt grass, foraging for whatever it is turkeys eat on a burned prairie. Their feathers were so black they blended right in. They were utterly nonplussed by my presence, those turkeys. They just calmly picked through the grass as I ran by.
Sometimes I like nature better than humans.
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