How Every 80's Mall Was Basically a Thunderdome - The 80's #6

 The 80's mall was a lot of things. A shopping centre was NOT one of them. It was:

• A lawless biome where "Lord of the Flies" played out over and over again on weekends, and on Tuesdays at the arcade.

• A concrete savannah where the native wild teenager roamed in packs.

• The place where parents, though tethered to their toddlers, still managed to lose them by the fountain

• An environment where hormones went on full display; a zoo where the always accessorizing met the chronically lustful.

Who was in charge of this mess?

Nobody ever really knew.

You stepped inside, and civilization loosened its belt until the pants of reality hit the faux-marble floor.

Time bent. Morality wobbled.

Somebody farted in the glass elevator.

And at the precise coordinates that landed a youth between Orange Julius and the vintage lava lamp display at Spencer Gifts, an uninvested mall employee with a survey clipboard said, "Have at it, kid. Good luck in there."

Survival challenges started at the food court, along with life-math skills:

• Pizza + fries + something vaguely teriyaki = greasy fog of impaired judgment.

• Sticky tables + cups of soda large enough to drown in X lack of anything resembling dignity = cleanliness optional bus ride home.

If you were a teen, the mall was neutral territory. You didn't meet friends there. You assembled and walked around aimlessly, judging other groups of teens by hair volume and brand of jeans.

Eye contact was currency; so was giving off the vibe that you didn't care what others thought when you actually so desperately did.

In the 80's, Stores Were as Wild as Their Teenaged Patrons

Unpredictable.

One minute, you're in a respectable, two-level department store where adults nod at you like a fellow human being doing their everyday errands. Next thing you know, you wake up in a music store where the synth-pop is blaring so loudly WWII veterans are ducking for cover behind wooden benches in the hallway.

Security guards - or as I look back on them now - underfunded warlords in extremely hostile territory, were present but wisely uninvested. Their job wasn't "enforce the rules."

More like "Observe. Report. Intervene only in cases of rapid blood loss."

Yet it worked. Miraculously.

The mall was our very first taste of freedom.

We COULD exist without constant supervision. Most of us actually could make it home with all limbs still attached AND both of our eyes.

Terrible fashion choices were ours to make alone.

And we learned how to be a whole person by observing real people fail at it over and over again in real time.

Now malls are quieter. Cleaner. Safer.

Or Smart Centres.

The world demanded convenience and got it, but in so doing lost the magic of a shared place where youths (of all ages) went - whether they wanted to or not - and sometimes ended up mysteriously sticky.

The lesson?

There are times in life when the mess IS the point. Moments in life when you need a Thunderdome to help you figure out who you are.

And sometimes, we don't even realize we're caught up in the middle of something iconic until it's gone and the fountain's been removed.