The land of 10,000 retail stores.

Today I was lost for over a half hour in my own neighborhood.  Yes, in my own hood.  Why? Because I now live in the land of 10,000 retail stores and restaurants.  It is more than confusing. There are 24 humongous shopping centers to service it’s 70,000 affluent residents. Plenty of places to spend that disposable ching!

I was trying to find my bank and my phone kept directing me in a circle. It was like a freakin corn maze. I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the sea of parking lots to get  on a main road. By the time I found the bank, the drive-thru was closed. Aggggh.  Guess I don’t really need any cash today. Then I got swept up with all of the traffic and ended up in front of some 50 foot high mountains of sand. In Minnesota? Looked like the outskirts of Las Vegas. What’s up with that? What are they? It was like the Twilight Zone!  Is that going to eventually morph into another shopping Mall?

This is the 3rd time this has happened to me in the last several months.  Is that all people do here?  Eat and shop? Ha!  Why don’t you use your GPS, Jeanne?  I have.  It is just as confused as I am. Glad I live on the simple side of the freeway of this ching-ching town. I guess you could say I only live in ching! Just a small residential area with a couple of walking paths and small parks. The nearest retail outlet is a tiny outdated strip mall. It features a Karate school, a dentist, a pet groomer and a liquor store.  The liquor store is a delightfully strange, yet homey little Mayberry-type place with iron bars on the windows.  A live Parrot greets you at the door and the beverage selection includes Christmas closeouts and boxes of Girl Scout Cookies! You could learn to defend yourself, shampoo Fido, get your teeth cleaned, and pick up dessert and Miller, all in one fell swoop.  What else could one neighborhood ever need?

I see many patrons of this liquor store on foot, which makes me also question why they aren’t driving?  Ha! it is like the island of mis-fit toys on this end of the city, but I like it.  I am really beginning to like it here.