In the 1980s, malls were more than just a place to shop. They were a religion.
The church of the mall had many followers. Debra was a devout member. She knew the layout of her local mall like the back of her hand. She knew which stores had the best deals, where to find the pretzel stand, and which bench didn’t wobble.
But there was one store that Debra never dared enter: Spencer’s Gifts. It was the playground of the weird and the wild. But one day, Debra’s friend, Karen, convinced her to take a peek inside.
Karen led Debra through the store, pointing out all the “cool” stuff. There were fake vomit kits, whoopee cushions, and fake dog poop. Debra had never seen anything like it.
Then Karen pointed to a wall of posters. “Look!” she said, pointing to a poster of a shirtless man holding a surfboard. “Isn’t he dreamy?”
Debra looked closer. The man wasn’t just shirtless. He was oiled up and glistening. Debra’s heart skipped a beat.
“I must have that poster,” she said.
And so, Debra became a disciple of the church of the mall, of Spencer’s Gifts, and of a shirtless man holding a surfboard. She hung the poster in her room like a shrine.
Every morning, Debra would wake up and say a prayer to the shirtless man. “Oh, great one,” she’d say, “watch over me as I shop today.”
And he did. Debra found more deals than ever before. She even made friends with the guy who worked at the pretzel stand. Life was good.
But one day, Debra woke up to find that the poster had fallen off the wall. She searched frantically for it but it was nowhere to be found.
Desperate, she turned to the church of the mall. She asked the other members for help.
They all looked at her like she was crazy. “Who cares about some poster?” they said.
Debra was devastated. She had lost her faith.
But then, she saw the shirtless man in real life. He was working at the surf shop next to Spencer’s Gifts.
And so, Debra was reborn. She had found her new religion: surfing. She bought a board and hit the waves.
And every night, when she went to bed, she said a prayer to the shirtless man. “Thank you,” she’d say, “for leading me to the real church of the mall: the ocean.”
