Shopping malls. Might as well be the pyramids to our kids. My son is 17 and when I bring up Hickory Hollow Mall or Rivergate Mall, he will look at me as if I am talking about some far off world where only explorers ventured or something he will see on Ancient Aliens or one of those bizarre History channel shows I never watch.
As Christmas season approaches, I always think about going to Hickory Hollow Mall to hang with friends or get into some general nonsense. When I went to the mall, I would always park in the Dillard’s parking lot and go in that entrance. In fact, I did it all the time and for one simple reason that a lot of my friends did as well.
Remember as this story goes on, I am 15, 16 or 17 as it progresses. Just a silly goofy boy with acne who had no clue about life. That also sums up most of my friends, too. So here is the reason we went in to the mall.
The women that worked the makeup and fragrance and cologne counters. They were the most beautiful women we had ever laid eyes on. We had zero money yet we acted as if we were millionaires.
They were always so kind and nice to us, even though they knew we had no money and absolutely zero sense. We were smitten with them and would end up walking out of Dillard’s smelling like we just went through a car wash of cologne. I might as well have been screaming to just take all my money!
How bad was it for me? This is absolutely 100% true. One lady that worked there was working the cologne/perfume counter. I had stopped by and acted as if I was going to buy something, per usual. She had an incentive to sell Obsession for Women and was putting the full court press on me. She told me she needed one more sale to hit her quota. Then she dropped the hammer. “You know it says its for women but it smells great on you.” She sprayed it on me and I bought not one, but two bottles of Obsession for Women.
Hook, line and sinker. Well done, and a lot of life lessons learned walking through the Dillard’s makeup section while entering the mall. My mom saw the perfume in my room and said, “Did you mean to buy these?” I looked at her and said, “Mom, let’s have a talk.”
Funny, for years I kept one of those bottles of Obsession unopened, in my dresser as a reminder of exactly what teenage obsession was and smelled like and absolutely zero pun intended.
Years later, I was talking to someone about Dillard’s and Hickory Hollow Mall and he said, “Did you ever go to the mall and just walk through the makeup section over and over and over just to see beautiful women?” I laughed and said, “Hey, sit down. Let’s have a talk.”
