Wizard of Id by Parker and Hart for December 22, 2024

I had to go to a strip mall in Ocala today, the crowds are still there!

Our mall is pretty empty and only one food place open in the food court. Very sad to see.

Most malls are abandoned.

Not strictly true. Some malls are starting to make a comeback. More of them are adding full-on bars and restaurants, trying to draw in the Gen Z crowd.

Those were the days, my friend; we thought they’d never end; we stood in line forever and a day…

I used to like the christmas eve street/farmers market in the small town I used to live in. There are always hot chestnut and doughnut sellers, last minute presents, fruit and veg. I moved this year and the town I’m in has closed ALL the small markets to get people into a mall. It hasn’t worked and the mall’s empty.

Well, certainly not like that here. Malls and shops are full, had to park far out in the lot. Certainly not like it used to be 40-50 years ago, but better than the last 5-10.

Lots of people but not many bags at our mall.

I don’t

“Gone Malling” used to be a thing….

Our mall was just sold to the highest bidder. He’s turning it into a couple homes and the rest a strip of shops. It’s funny, when we had strip stores, they got rid of them and put them into a mall. To me this is an oxymoron.

Just staring at a small screen all day and night and incessantly tapping on what one sees on it will do wonders for the future of human health. As the curse falsely attributed to the Chinese might say, we’ll be living in interesting times.

We have a mall that only has one higher end retailer, a movie theatre and a small group of restaurants on the outer perimeter. Meanwhile a “Outlet mall” has to have police directing traffic on some days it’s so busy. The old mall was inside and warm, the outlet mall is open to the elements (read cold) as we’re in the Midwest. I prefer the old mall. Oh well. Thats progress I guess. Oh, and a new casino is being built by the outlet mall.

if you’ve seen one collection of shops under a single roof, you seem a mall

Around here, shopping malls are bought and turned into an Amazon warehouse…

Our Mall (Westmoreland Mall) was fading away but then they put a fancy casino in the space where the Sears used to be. It’s crazy there now, but I don’t know if it helped the individual stores sales.

Last time I did any holiday shopping at a mall was in the late 80s.

Yesterday some drunken idiot running from the cops in his truck tried to evade them by driving into a local mall where he hit and injured 4 to 5 people.

If you’ve seen one huge retail conglomerate, you’ve seen the mall.

The only Toy some high school boys made a mad dash for was the oriental female surnamed Toy who decided to become a cheerleader for the local Trojans.

I don’t. I haven’t been to a mall in years!

I wonder how autobiographical this strip is for the authors…. Hmm…

In 1986 I moved to a small city that had a vibrant downtown shopping/restaurant/nightlife. Around ten years later approval for construction of a mall on the outskirts of that city was granted. Within another year or so downtown was at least 3x more vacant businesses than operating ones, and it was all but dead after 6 pm.

Let’s see. Taking hours to find a parking spot, and only finding one by stalking anyone who looks like they are leaving.The crowds, the whiny kids/adults, the rude teens, pickpockets, the carrying of packages to your car if you can remember where you parked it, explaining to people that no, you’re not leaving yet and they can’t have your parking spot.I was really quite over the whole mall scene way before malls were pretty much over.It’s nostalgic to remember the good things, but there were plenty of annoying things that went with them, and I don’t miss it.

Dang, I was hoping Henry would make an appearance for Christmas. Oh well, maybe New Year’s Eve.

I was at the 5th largest mall in America on Friday. It was not busy at all. And not particularly festive.

I always finished my shopping early and I loved to go to the mall to see the decorations and just leisurely watch people running around.

Is there a “hot toy” this year?

Just consider yourselves lucky that the mall is still there at all. By this time next year, it might well have been remodeled into condominiums.

If I am at the mall it is because I’m there to catch a movie. Last time I forgot the mall closes at six pm on Sundays and I was parked on the other end and my friends had left since they parked close to the theater. I got lucky a couple let me hitch a ride to my car. Good people are still around thank goodness.

There are a lot of malls closing because of their tenants leaving to go to newer malls

Me three.

I haven’t been inside a mall in over a decade.

….one stop shopping…..guess they loved the “madness”!!!!!

Nope. Instead I spend endless hours in front of the monitor going from store to store.

I never had understood malls. Everything is aimed at selling you something from the time you step through the door. I make a list and perform a tactical buying operation during the least busy time of day. I have not been in an indoor mall in about ten years at this point.

I seriously believe they were designed to train humans who want to live in near-Earth orbit, totally enclosed, with no Nature.

I once made the mistake of going to the mall on Christmas eve. That’s the closest I ever what to get to experiencing a zombie apocalypse,

We all do, though those in retail this time of year probably not so much…

It’s Amazon’s fault :p

So do the malls!

I don’t. The crowds did grow last week. I don’t need to travel until after Christmas now and that’s good.