The Never Ending Parking Lot
David and I went to the mall today to finish up our Christmas shopping. We expected the mall would be busy because it is so close to Christmas. The mall is surrounded by parking lots on all sides, and when we arrived, we encountered a good amount of traffic coming and going through the lots.
It did not take us very long to complete our shopping. Soon we were getting back into the car, ready to go.
We started off slow, because it was bumper to bumper traffic traveling on the road that brings you around the whole mall. Soon we went from moving slowly to a dead stop. Literally, we would move one car length, then wait five to ten minutes to move another car length.
After about an hour, I left David with the car and went back into the mall to buy some soda and snacks. When I returned, David had hardly moved.
About a half hour later, I asked David, "How many miles per hour do you think we're averaging?"
"I don't know... how far do you think we've gone? Maybe five or six hundred feet?"
"Six hundred sounds about right."
"Well, we don't have anything better to do," David said, pulling out the calculator on his cell phone. "There are 5,280 feet in a mile, so..." A few seconds later he said, "We're moving .025 miles an hour!"
"We're cruising!"
Finally, about an hour later, we started moving faster. By the time we actually left the mall property, we had been driving for over three hours!
It actually did not seem that long; being with David made the time go by fairly quickly. But I have never experienced traffic like that before.
And thankfully we are both done our Christmas shopping now.
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6 comments:
I was in a simailar situation once at a mall and made a promise to myself never to go to a mall so close to Christmas.
Yet, this morning I am up early, thinking about going to the mall and hoping that at this time of day, it won't be too bad.
Your post is helping me to consider changing my mind!
Lena
Ugh! You are far more patient than I am! By then I would have been climbing the walls...err, I mean the windows! This reminds me of why I try hard to avoid malls during such seasons. LOL at the mph calculations, don't have to worry about any speeding tickets! :-)
That just sounds horrendous, Mike! Lucky you had such fabulous company :-)
Wow. Holy cow. I couldn't even imagine. I went out shopping today as well and I saw the miles-long line at the mall. Luckily I was going the opposite direction, but still. Craziness everywhere! I'm glad you had a good time through it though. Good conversation can get you through a lot.
you handled that very well!!
i would have been nutso...
I hope you have a very merry christmas
Good words.
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