The South Plains Mall was basically Lubbock’s unofficial babysitter when I was growing up here in the 90s. My gal pals and I would get all dressed up in our cutest outfits, complete with blue eyeshadow and velvet choker necklaces, hoping we’d come across a group of cute boys to wander around with.
Only $10, Mom??
I remember grumbling when my parents only dropped me off with 10 bucks, but they knew better. If they’d given me more than that, I would have just bought a bunch of fake dog poop from Spencer’s for all my friends. Honestly, running through South Plains Mall without your folks telling you what to do was fun as hell, but some of it was akin to a boot camp that prepares you for adult life. Well. Sort of.
Here’s what growing up as a South Plains Mall rat prepared us for, and what it absolutely DID NOT…
1. Surviving the Food Court
You can get a ton of free samples in the food court, something you’d definitely need if you wanted you $10 to buy you something other than a chicken sandwich. Maybe it taught us to be frugal? Or…perhaps it just made the barrier between us and our parents even bigger. I’m still getting over a few resentments from that…
2. Ignoring Awkward Encounters
You were bound to come across a few people you knew from school while you were at the mall. Nothing says “exhibiting grace under pressure” like hiding from your 6th-grade arch rival behind some frilly pink boas at Claire’s. She sucked.
3. Walking Never Killed Anyone
We had no idea that in the near future, we’d consider walking around the mall in circles as a “chore”. All that walking probably kept us skinny in our little size 0 pants from Abercrombie & Fitch. I might need to add “walking at the mall” to my list of weekly exercises…
4. Job Interviews
It’s hard to believe we ACTUALLY wanted to work at the mall. I would never do that to myself as an adult. You can guess why by going back up to #3. I lied. I don’t really do weekly exercises.
5. Parking Lots
The mall never prepared me for the hatred I have for parking lots, likely because I was always just dropped off by my or my friends’ parents. They already knew the struggle and chose to let us live carefree as long as they could. Thanks, but not thanks…
6. Fashion in The Real World
I haven’t bought clothes at the mall in years. When I was a kid, I thought surely I’d be wearing all the designer stuff I wanted someday. Nope. I’d rather pay rent and keep the lights on. Walmart it is.
7. Silence
After spending so much time around music, buzzing chatter, and squeaking shoes, it’s hard to adjust to silence at first when you become an adult. Now, I find the noises at the mall an auditory nightmare.
Those Were The Days…
In closing, I guess we didn’t learn that much at the mall, except for how to kill time and spend our parents’ money like it was in endless supply. However, it did shape our childhoods, give us a little privacy, and teach us that “NO RUNNING” means “There is absolutely no running, and we will call your parents if we catch you doing it again. Do you understand?”…