For as long as I can ever remember — going to the Mall has made me light-headed, dizzy and sick.
Sure, some could say that I am a guy and guys have not been genetically-enhanced with the genes that allow them to walk through a mall without becoming violently ill or somewhat-sickly. Sure, some could offer up that the reason for my light-headed dizzy thing is all psychological because I do not want to be there and do not want to have anything to do with the Mall itself. Others might suggest that it is the variety of smells (perfume, cookies, leather, pretzels, bath bombs, chinese food, suede and coffee) that causes such gag-inducing sickness.
I just think it’s the chaos.
I’ll tell you this — I could never be an ant. Think about it. As an ant, I would have to be running around all day long with hundreds of thousands of other people with like minds, all trying to pass a piece of bread on their shoulders to the homestead. (I.e., drag a bag of holiday presents back to the car, in the packed parking lot, then get it home.) Shopping at the mall and being an ant at a fourth of July picnic are pretty much one in the same.
What I don’t get is how women are able to handle the barrage of smells on their senses without getting light-headed and sick? Men are traditionally much better at the eye-hand coordination thing, which allows them to play those seizure-inducing video games without having seizures or any dizziness. But walk into a Mall, and it’s all over. But women, they could live in Malls and stores (most of them not all of them) without showing any signs of fatigue, weakness or sickness.
It is a mystery that I have yet to solve.
Nonetheless, I have determined that sickness is at its height (stores in which I see more men sitting down in chairs in dark corners) at stores that have cramped quarters or try to overload the senses. Such stores include the outdated Sears, cluttered Montgomery Ward and music-blasting, light-enhanced Express stores. These stores are the devil and I refuse to ever go in them again.
Am I the only one with this sickness? Or do I have brethren out there with whom I can form a support network?
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