#retail

As I was checking her mother out at the register she pulled out a handful of rubber rats from her pocket and put them on my counter, to which her mother sighed and said "no sweetie, he doesn't need rats" to which I just looked at her like this

A couple I was helping earlier had two little ones, three and six, who were behaving in a rather saintly fashion for the average bored kid I see. I tried to engage them with remotes and things while their parents talked.

Eventually they were restless enough that I pulled out notepads and asked if they wanted to draw. The three year old quickly lost interest and I went over to ask her favorite animal. She told me “elephant” so to delight and amaze her I started drawing an elephant. Usually kids are into it.

When I was done she pronounced, “It looks like a giraffe.”

I staggered back melodramatically but actually laughing hysterically and said, “There goes my art degree!”

The parents laughed and said kids were harsh critics. When they checked out they saw my elephant doodle on the desk and both did a double take like, “Woah, that’s a really good elephant!”

Selections from the May 1988 issue of Shopping Center World Magazine

Picnic Place food court at the Manhattan Town Center

2. Movie theater at Sunrise Mall in Corpus Christi, TX

3. Unknown mall/store interior by Donohoe, O'Brien & Company, Inc.

4. Lakeland Square food court

5. Regis Hairstylists storefront

6. Regis Hairstylists interior

7. Ad for the chain of record stores, Record Bar

8. Information booth at Trolley Square in Salt Lake City, created from an antique gondola

9. Ad for Record Town, a record store part of Trans World Music