Today’s episode is the token sad one. With the holiday season in full swing, I was reminded just how empty it is here at The Mall. Go to any other mall around town and you’ll walk in to a place that looked like Santa and his reindeer threw up all over it. There is stuff hanging from the ceilings, decor lining the walkways and most likely a section cordoned off for The Big Guy himself.

Not here. There is nothing. Not a wreath or string of lights or anything. I guess I shouldn’t expect that there would be. In fact I’m not even sure the management company of this mall does anything at all! But walking in on Monday to find nothing changed – and the dark, drab  hallways still dark and drab – was actually kind of sad.

I took a walk on Tuesday. Needed to get out of my chair and move around a bit so I figured, hey, why not mall walk! Usually my British friend goes with me but she was at the other office. So it was just me. Thought about talking to myself as I walked – I would have fit right in!  It was so quiet that I could hear every distinct tip tap of my heels on the floor and then hear the echo of each one.

Here’s a couple of shots of the long empty hallways. Notice there is absolutely no activity.

Lower level

Upper level

I, however, decorated my cube. Someone’s gotta bring some holiday spirit to this place!! Some of the little holly bits fell off while I was putting it up and the Brit used those to decorate her cube.

Garland running along the top of my cube

 Vs.

Holiday holly on the Brit's cube

Other tidbits:

As I was walking in to work this morning, I saw a guy putting money into one of the dusty candy machines here. I thought, “No, he’s not…is he?” Sure enough, he took the handful of old stale stuff that came out and popped it all in his mouth. GAK! I think I threw up in my mouth a little when I saw it. He was a security guard so I wondered if perhaps it was some kind of training regimen he was putting himself through (like in the military when they purposely gas the soldiers so that they know what it feels like). Regardless, it was nasty.

The Brit, Bob, and I had lunch today at John’s. It’s becoming a Friday tradition. I had spanakopita and fries. John’s fries are awesome! Anyway, we talked about all kinds of things and had a rather lovely time. The conversation ranged from 80’s music videos to age differences in our relationships to gross bathrooms to the military to splitting pants. I believe the word “poo house” was used at one point. We laughed a lot and it was great.

Special guest this week: the Air Force! At today’s lunch, there was a table of Air Force personnel sitting next to us. Offut Air Force Base is not too far from here and I guess they wanted to see what all the fuss over John’s was about. It was one woman and 4 men. And let me tell you, all the guys were hot and the chick looked like Julia Stiles. Not bad to look at over the lunch hour! Hey – I may be married but I’m not dead! 😉

Until next week, consider yourself ANNEXED!

Funny story told to us today by one of the consultants up from Texas. Apparently he has a 62-year-old Aunt Lennie Lou who INSISTS on checking her bag every time before she leaves the house to make sure she has 3 things with her: 

1. A bottle of wine
2. Her shotgun
3. $5,000 cash

Ha! Lennie Lou sounds like a hoot to me! Not sure what kind of trouble she thinks she could get in to but I guess it’s always good to be prepared!

Since this is a short week, and today is technically my Friday, I’m moving Annexed up on the docket. Besides, I’ll have much more important things to talk about on Friday, like all the shopping I did and people I had to elbow in order to snag that good deal. 😉

This week, there wasn’t much activity so I decided to walk around the mall and see what interesting gems I could find. I actually found quite a few! This place is stuck in time and totally feels like a ghost town. It seriously is like a zombie movie where everyone just drops everything and runs, leaving behind a snapshot of how life was before the population was eaten alive.

Ghost Town

Walking around the mall you see all kinds of items that are either broken, dirty or just left abandoned in random places. First example is the escalators. They don’t escalate. They don’t move. They just sit. As if after all these  years of moving up and down, they are simply tired and giving a big middle finger to all the mall walkers who dared to climb on for a free ride. Pish posh! You will climb up and down you lazy bums!

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Then there are the carts/strollers.

You’ll be walking and come around the corner and see a cart there. Or is it a stroller? Or is it both? I can’t tell. It might also be some kind of prehistoric wheelchair for all I know. It is a nice pretty robin’s egg blue though. Also, notice the healthy, full plant directly behind said cart/stroller. Sad isn’t it? That plant is a direct reflection on the state of the mall itself.

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Finally, there is this sad lonely basketball game. It’s one of those where you have to try to get as many baskets as possible in a certain amount of time. Only this one no longer works. In fact, if you look closely you’ll notice that’s not even a ball in the basket, it’s a balloon. Man it would be really hard to win at this game if you were playing with a balloon. I bet this came from a carnival. You know how at carnivals the games are impossible to win because they’re all rigged so that no one can get the big prize? That’s what this game reminds me of. How can you possibly get a basket if you’re playing with a balloon! Damn the man! Anyway, it’s sitting off in a secluded corner, all alone, pining for its former glory days when the kids would come squealing up to it begging their moms and dads for a quarter to play. [tear]

Abandoned

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Then there are  the abandoned shops. Most of the bays here are empty and closed up and they don’t have windows to see in, or else the windows have been boarded up. However, there are a few that you can see in to and it’s totally worth the peek!

First there is the chair graveyard. Not sure what this store used to be but it’s now the dumping ground for old blue office chairs. It’s actually kind of eerie to look in and see all these chairs piled up on each other. On the other hand, it might be fun to break in and have chair races up and down the halls of the mall!

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Next comes the old JC Penney Decorating and Design Shop. It seems that not only did JCP have one of the big anchors in the mall, they also had a design outlet. You can see here the stacks of swatches piled up by the gate. They actually still have signs up at other spots in the mall, directing people to come down to the shop and get 20% off! Sweet! I’ve always wanted to buy my very own swatch book and now I can get one at a discount! I just have to figure out how to break down the gate and get in there….

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Next comes a restaurant that was apparently abandoned in the 80’s because the walls have that awesome sponge painting on them. And it’s even done in turquoise and fuscia. FABULOUS (jazz hands)!  Maybe these owners could have used some help from the JC Penney Decorating store. Guess they didn’t know they could get 20% off.

Anywho. This one really looks like everyone in it just vanished into a puff of smoke. All the tables/chairs are still set up and the counter looks ready to serve (aside from the inches of dust on it). I think the trellis is a nice touch too.

Candy

Oddly enough, there is no shortage of places to buy candy around here. There is the GIANT gumball machine, the candy cart and then the regular old collection of candy machines.

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The giant gumball machine is nearly empty so the gumballs (with their “Secret Centers”) must be popular. Or else that machine has been around since the mall opened 44 years ago and it’s taken that long to empty it. At any rate, I’m not sure how old those balls are but they’ve gotta be pretty old. And who wants old balls? I mean, really.

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 Same holds true for this guy. Again, I imagine these candies haven’t been refilled or refreshed in quite some time. Wonder if there is a little expiration date on each one? Some day I will double dog dare one of the Indians into trying one of them. I’ll tell them it’s an American custom or something.

I also like how the candy machine is secured by a cable to the railing. Blast! And I was hoping to take it home and gift it to CJ for Christmas. Sorry honey, no candy machine in your stocking this year. *sigh*

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Candy cart – see comments above. Ditto and ditto. I like the name of it though – Buddy Snacks. That’s very friendly don’t you think? I can see it now….Feeling lonely? In need of a friend? Come on down and get a Buddy Snack! We’ve got all the candy you could possibly want! Never mind that it’s 25 years old and may turn your stomach inside out. For a moment, it’ll make you feel loved and less alone!

Get ya coming and going

I tell ya, they think of everything in this mall. Not only do they have a gazillion candy machines, they also have several scales so that you can see exactly how many pounds you gained stuffing your face (or how many pounds you lost after the candy made you puke).

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 This one is for the person that wants everything. It not only gives you a report of your weight, your ideal weight, and calorie in take, but it also gives you your 6 lucky lottery numbers AND speaks Spanish. You guys, this is frickin’ sweet! All that for only a quarter! You can’t beat it!

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This next one is my favorite. It has a handmade sign, with a picture of a bug on it saying “Don’t bug me about my weight!” The bug is even wearing a collar that says “Bugsy”. HA! Love it! And guess what? It’s still only a quarter! You can’t beat that folks! I don’t think this one speaks Spanish though or gives me my lucky lottery numbers but that’s ok. Bugsy makes it all worth it.

Odds and Ends

Last but not least, we have the other random stuff that can’t be categorized.

Here is a window we found that was boarded up with newspaper. Notice the date on the newspaper – June 24, 2001. That’s 10 years ago! I also like the Ann Landers headline – “Lack of Desire Bedevils Wife”. Tell me more Ann!!

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Directly across the hall from Ann Landers is The F.A.R.M. I had no idea but apparently they do shooting contests here at the mall. Not sure why that surprises me. Maybe “shooting contest” is code for “gang activity”. And the Cryps and the Bloods now belong to a union called The F.A.R.M. Hey, I’m just sayin’…

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Last but not least, we have the mirror framed bay. This bay has actually been turned in to a conference room for our office and the doors are surrounded on all 3 sides by mirrors. Look – there are 2 of me!

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I don’t appreciate how hippy the top image makes me look though. I’m going to go console myself by getting some candy from Buddy Snacks.

Well, that’s it for this week. Stay tuned and as always, you’ve been Annexed!

P.S. On Friday you can find me outside The Mall at 3 a.m. waiting for the doors to open. Gonna get me some good deals! Oh wait, this mall doesn’t have any stores. Ok never mind.

Monday started out as any other day. People were rolling in to the office slowly, trying to drag out as much of the weekend as they could. I was feeling particularly icky, dealing with a virus that had me down all weekend. But, things would soon be looking up!

I ate lunch with one of my co-workers, Bob*, and while sitting in the cafe, I saw a man come in through a door at the back of the room. I asked Bob where that door went. He said it led to the old theater. Holy cheap seats Batman! In all our wanderings around the mall, the Brit and I had yet to uncover the old theater! Bob and I immediately ran back to the Annex to get the Brit and tell her of our find. Upon hearing about the discovery, we decided the only sensible thing to do was grab our cameras and go exploring!

With a spring in our step and a twinkle in our eye, the 3 of us headed to the cafeteria and out the back door. What we walked in to was a small foyer with stairs on one side and a long hallway on the other. The stairs led down to the gym below and the hallway led to the theater. We turned right to go down the hall and were immediately stopped in our tracks by something so amazing that we were all rendered speechless.

The scooter!! Yes, Scooter’s scooter was sitting in the hallway, abandoned.

Where had he gone? Did Scooter really ever exist or was the scooter haunted? We didn’t stick around to find out.

We continued on and came to the theater, which is now a Mexican church. All this time, the bay across from the Annex that we thought was the church was really just their administrative offices. This was their actual worship space. Except, it was run down and grimy and dusty. Very Alfred Hitchcock.

The front of the theater. You can see the sign up in the corner which reads "Iglesia de Dios Fraternidad Cristiana"

 I decided to be brave and go up there, where I found the old popcorn counter. And it still had bags of popcorn kernels and coffee beans in the display case!

I walked behind the counter and it was very dirty and scary and I was literally watching my steps, afraid I would step on a roach or mouse or something even more sinister. The Brit snapped a quick pic and then I was outta there!

 We followed the ramp which leads down to the ticket office (don’t you love the Pepto Bismol pink walls?).

We then turned the corner and found the other side of the Theater/Church on our left and another set of stairs straight ahead.

On the side of the church was an emblem. The emblem is a big circle with several bible verse references around the outer edge. In the center is Davinci’s drawing of David, with a church building strategically placed over his crotch. Then it says “THE DWELLING PLACE” in huge letters at the bottom. I’m sure it’s very meaningful to this church, but we just found it kind of strange…almost cult like.

Anywho…

At that point we figured it was time to go back. So we headed the way we came – past the ceiling vent with black mold growing on it, past the old rickety door that is still locked even though it’s so barely on its hinges that even I could break it down with just a strong sneeze, past the “blood stained” walls and back to the hallway that leads out of this dark, desolate place. The very hallway where we first encountered Scooter’s scooter. We had been wandering and exploring for nearly 10 minutes by this point and we thought surely the scooter would be gone.

But it wasn’t.

It was still sitting there all alone, just as we had left it.

We all just stopped and stared at it. Bob said that maybe we should call someone. The Brit thought we should get out of there before he came back. Just as she said that we heard a flush and we all screamed like little girls and went running down the hallway, practically diving back in to the cafeteria. We didn’t slow down until we were safely back in the Annex.

Not but an hour later, I would find myself unconscious on the bathroom floor. Coincidence? You tell me. Could it have been something I encountered in the Haunted Hallway? Was it from breathing in the harmful toxins that surely pollute the air back there? We will never know.  

Due to the unfortunate circumstances of Monday afternoon, I was out of work and unable to spend anymore time in the Annex this week. However, the Brit alerted me to the fact that on Tuesday afternoon, a water main broke in the area and all water to the building was shut down. It just keeps getting better and better! I can’t make this stuff up people!

Notice from Facilities (click to view in full size)

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.