An Hour in the Mall Massage Chair

Chatterbox Update 6

May 27, 2025

I think in a better world being at the mall two days in a row would be a little cute, harmless detail. And in this world, it also was, technically. Yesterday I took my cousin because she asked and I had her for her day off from school. Today I took my dad there because he wanted to experience the unique luxury of the mall massage kiosks. So he paid for an hour of relaxation by the food court, and I wandered off for a while.

At first I just peeked into the Converse store and lamented that their most popular shoe, which was on sale for an outrageously low price, was not— surprise, surprise— in my size. But then I remembered I was broke anyway, and ventured off to Sephora. Awkwardly meandered and watched the hawk-eyed associates swoop down upon people who seemed marginally interested in needing assistance. Dipped into Hot Topic and then just as quickly wheeled around because that part of my life is done. Left to go back up the avenue to sit in one of the questionably working massage chairs in the middle of the hall that most folks just use as regular seating anyway.

Here is where my second trip to the mall in as many days, took a not harmless turn.

You ever just sat in place and physically and spiritually caught yourself beginning to spiral? Because that’s what I was going through for the hour I sat half tense in that black, cushiony chair. My body faced an Armani Exchange, and to my left I could see the hall lead up to the Rainforest Cafe and a turn to the final avenue, and to my right there lay further down Pink, Victoria Secret, and more avenues leading to the exit. The mall wasn’t too full, actually, but there was more than enough people to people watch and get a sense of . . . a sense of society. The world? The United States of America.

I sat there watching teenagers in 2000s mall goth attire loping past, gangly and jubilant and aggressively nonchalant but tuned in at the same time. I watched families pass by, mothers pushing strollers, fathers playfully patting sons’ cheeks. A woman with a jean mini-skirt the size of a belt and tattoos of pink bows on the backs of her thighs hold hands with her aggressively normal boyfriend. Women in athleisure, men in half buttoned cheap button-downs, teens in love with rebellion, families in love with what they think are good deals.

I sat there and felt my test tighten a little, my throat swelling with some feeling that I tried to parse out to my mom when she called, but just couldn’t really get down. I could accurately explain the why, though. On the way up to the massage kiosk, we passed by two new shoe stores that had replaced the old shoe stores that failed to keep up business. Did the new owners of the new stores, I wondered, think that selfie lighting circling thirty mirrors would make one more susceptible to spending $300 on some weird looking shoes? We passed by Zales, where the only people were the workers, all looking down at the clear cases, listless and blatantly aware not to expect any major sales for the day. I passed by an empty L’Occitane, an American Eagle outlet that was transitioning to another part of the mall (a part I knew well had much smaller spaces than the one they were currently in, which is basically like one foot in the grave isn’t it?), a Pink filled with a handful of teenagers who still believed this store was the pinnacle of lingerie, and a full Nike store.

People passed by, as I sat in the massage chair and made no move to pay for it, with either empty hands or hands filled with bags from Express, Nike, Lego, and various other stores. Have they seen the documentary that explained how high-end brands make two different lines, one for their well-to-do customers and another less good line for the outlets? Was I about to have an anxiety attack?

Stores were closing and new stores would replace them, and those stores would close and new ones would quickly rise to replace them because there are some fucking CROOKS masquerading as business consultants who are apparently telling their clientele that people still really wanna pay lots for shoes and strange boutiques. Like this one called . . . I don’t even remember but it had a logo for a dog but it was a clothing store for people, and it seemed like the most boring athleisure wear for primarily dudes but every ad inside of it had someone posing with a French Bulldog.

“We just keep circling the drain, repeating the same stuff we know doesn’t work over and over again.” I griped to my mother, swinging my feet. The back ends of my dusty blue Coach sandals, purchased from the Coach outlet in Philidelphia a couple years ago, flopped dramatically to my beat. “The problem with these malls— and especially Aventura (reader, hear me: Fuck Aventura)— is that they’re bringing in these luxury stores or inviting these random boutique ideas in, in a bid to grab the attention of the new hot money moving into the state. But the problem is that rich people don’t want to shop in the same malls as us normies. They have Bal Harbor or, like, actual like stores where they set appointments for rich people and cater to them with water in pitchers and shit. They are not stomping through Sawgrass Mall, or enduring the fucking awful traffic on Biscayne.”

But it’s more than that, its this clear and frankly embarassing desperation malls have to grab anyone within reach. I sat on that chair and saw at least twelve times in one hour, the same ad on an electronic screen about shopping with Simon Outlets 24/7 with their app, and oh you can also buy Simon Outlet gift cards whenever you want on their app, oh and don’t forget Klarna and Afterpay, and— show some decorum!

But it made me so sad too. I watched people lean close together to read price tags and debate value, but drift away almost immediately after. Families walking with obvious distance between them, some alone walking through this disintegrating landscape, some huddled close together and looking for a distraction. And then I sat there and watched them and sometimes made eye contact and felt so alone. But then I also felt . . . too close. Suffocated almost by the passing people and the lack of AC in the mall because I seriously think they’re keeping the AC at the absolute highest temp humanly possible to avoid high electric bills. But then I started thinking all kinds of strange and contradictory things and felt these two different feelings and I got this tighter feeling in my chest and I wanted it to stop. Stop. stopstopstop.

I wish I was different. stop. I wish I was someplace different. stop. I wish my waist was smaller. stop. I wish I didn’t just think that. stop. I wish I could get some boba after this stop. I wish I could quit thinkstop. I wish I was writing this down in my notes so stop. I wish stopstopstopstopstop!

They keep fucking circling the drain and nobody wants to try something different to save themselves because they don’t know what something different would even look like! I don’t know! But we are going to die if we keep going like this and wow I thought I was once a fatalist but the general public takes it to the fucking max. I was stuck, half melted into that massage chair. I watched through the clear, clean window as people pulled out piles of thin cheap sweaters to look over and hem and haw over before shoving the sloppy pile back into place. People passed by, two teenage girls with their black French bulldog off leash and puttering behind them some distance. A janitor passing by, a Nike bag in one hand as the other absently reached out to pluck someone’s left behind smoothie from the arm rest of the last massage chair in my row.

I glanced down at my phone, scrolling slowly to finish this super romantic oneshot on Tumblr filled with good communication and intense ardor and yearning. I surmised that perhaps reading this at the same time as feeling a disconnect from society was exacerbating the issue.

In Sephora I had wanted to take a video of a row of Milk products and call it “Hiding in Sephora during the Apocalypse” because “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison was on, and it suddenly struck me as a song that might play as the last song you hear on the radio before total blackout in a societal collapse. I can’t explain to you why it felt like that, but at that moment it did. Did give me an idea for another post, though.

That whole mall trip felt depressing. Almost doomed. But perhaps that was a necessary experience. I know the cazimi isn’t until the weekend, but I wonder if it’s that message about my Gemini placement I read about in Otherwordly’s post that came out today . . .