Dark Hollister

At the mall the other day, Cowgrit and I split up for a few minutes: she went into one of those girly-clothes stores and I browsed through the book store. I finished my shopping before her, so I looked around, up and down the hall to see what other store might be of interest to me. There’s a Hollister across from the book store. I’ve never been in a Hollister — in fact, I didn’t know anything about it other than it looked like an Abercrombie & Fitch.

I stepped up to the front to take a peek inside, but the way the entrance is arranged, you can’t see inside from outside. But what you can see are some nearly naked mannequins. Look at the picture on the right. Look at that. I really hope that mannequin is not anatomically correct. And don’t think the pants nearly falling off are a mistake or accident — the other male mannequin behind it looks exactly the same.

My god! That’s absurd. Really. Remember when the offense was seeing a person’s underwear, or maybe the crack of their butt? Now stores are selling clothes to show this? I’m far from a prude, but come on, this is crazy.

I went into the store to see what the inside looked like. I walked all the way through the store and I nearly got lost. It was so damn dark that it took all my concentration to feel my way through the literal maze.

The store is as dark as a movie theater, and the walls and shelves were all black or dark wood. There were a few spotlights here and there, but the contrast in lighting just made the shadowed areas even darker.

Of the dozen or so customers in the store, ten of them were teenage girls. I saw two teenage boys in there, and I think one of them was a worker. I couldn’t really tell who was an employee because everyone was dressed alike — like teenagers who shop at Hollister.

I tried to look for some t-shirts, for myself, while I was in the store, but I couldn’t see anything on the shelves or tables well enough to identify what the clothes were.

I know it probably sounds like I’m exaggerating the place to be funny, or to be old, but really, it was very dark and very mazy. The only cool thing in the store were the two wall-sized monitors showing a live shot of Surf City, California.

I don’t understand how anyone, even teenagers, can shop for clothes in that kind of environment. It’s like shopping in a grotto.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com