The fact remains the peril strains the mind a bit

 

Last week, I mentioned the Bastion of Snobbery that is Hillsdale, which reminded me of another story. I thought I might as well share it. It's a good story. I have told this story before, and I will surely tell it again, but it's always fun telling as much as it is hearing.

Hillsdale is a VERY FANCY mall down in San Mateo that takes itself far too seriously. Its marble halls (no exaggeration) are far too grand for peons. Apparently, this pretentious waste of space now has fountains? Good lord. The stores, though they are still just retail stores at the end of the day, see themselves as FANCY retail stores,--dare I say it, SPECIAL retail stores. This mall has Bufano statues, for crying out loud. It may be marble latent in an upscale (if even that, lol) mall, but it's still a damn mall, for Christ's sake! That should give you a decent idea of what we are dealing with.

Put a pin in your brain of that staircase in the above photo, by the way.

It was 2006. Very vividly embossed in my brain as being 2006, because 2006 was such a fascinating time to be alive because of the music that came out between 2004 and 2006. I was still using my Walkman and was listening to The Killers' first album, Hot Fuss. I was a TA in a class in community college in San Bruno, and would take the bus all the way to San Mateo (because I do not drive) to bring a friend who worked at  Hillsdale their homework from said class. I didn't know how to take the train yet, plus, it was also (and still is) outrageously expensive. So we are looking at about 2 hours one way, with a Walkman. 

I have not always been the best person about boundaries, and that's 99% due to the fact that I don't know what they are and people blur them on purpose. Let me repeat myself, I am sometimes bad with boundaries, but people also exploit this, and blur them on purpose. I also refuse to let people fail, which is one of my biggest flaws. Now I know the best things to do are to set the boundaries yourself and let people be their own downfall. But at 19, I am still coming off of the aforementioned bumper crop hit parade of incompatible psych meds and my brain was still repairing itself, and still, for all intents and purposes, being a child in a legal adult's body, trying to take care of an irresponsible, and, dare I say, alcoholic, friend. I had tried to save a friendship that could not be saved, should not have been saved, and that I should not have even tried to saved. 

You have here a recipe of a disaster in the making: someone who cared too much about someone bent on their own self-destruction going out of their way for that person, whom the person who cared too much (that's me) should have just let fail (that's them).

Maybe I was, and occasionally am, still bad with boundaries, but this weakness was exploited, sure enough.

So, this person had once again missed an assignment, and I was bringing it to them.

This day would be the last time.

This person had been increasingly rude to me, and I had just taken it. I suppose I could have taken a hint, but when you can't always read people, especially when they are still accepting what you're giving them, sometimes you just don't know. 

This person worked in one of the aforementioned FANCY, ~upscale~ retail stores.

I show up in my usual way to bring this person their homework. This person cannot be bothered with me. Is downright rude and unkind to me. Has worn down on my very last nerve. I put their homework on their cashier counter, and they dismissed me like a peasant. Now, I understand that they were at work, and had to go about with At Work items of business. A fucking "thank you for doing this!" could have sufficed. But, alas, my very long fuse was up. 

I stomped up to them as they were dressing a mannequin with incredibly expensive and wholly ugly clothes. Beat. They wouldn't even look at me, though we both said nothing. Another beat.  Silence. Itty itty little fists  clenched, I hauled back a fist and punched out the mannequin they were dressing, pieces of it flying everywhere and the whole rest of the window display erupting in various directions and the removable parts scattering everywhere. I stomped out of the store and into the mall itself. 

Now, a normal person would have fled the scene of the crime, but, no, no, not I. Me with my itty bitty little fists still clenched and  sitting on a bench shaking with rage, decides that I am STILL MAD, and so I get up, stomp back into the store, and kick over about ten to a dozen more mannequins. I don't know the exact number because I was just kicking indiscriminately and knocking one down sent several more flying. How many I actually kicked is left up to the ages and a conversation between me and God, but I am sure the  security cameras in the store could have also told you.

The mall Rent-A-Cops have finally arrived, and the other store employees are clamoring to make it known that this was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea percent THAT EMPLOYEE'S FAULT, that this person had 100% exploited me, and that they hated this person. Also at this point, I am in tears. But you have to understand the optics, here: the lavender striped socks, the bear and rabbit clips in my blue anime Sailor Mercury hair, the My Melody cartoon backpack, the Mary Janes, the fake rhinestone bejeweled very fake glasses. A right proper threat, if you ask me.

I was led away, fate unknown, to what, to my estimation, was the Hillsdale Dungeon. As I am sitting there in a room of Ye Olde Mall Pokey, waiting for them to bring me the paper I had to sign-off on saying I was henceforth banned from the Great Kingdom of Hillsdale for the next 2 years, whom should come through the door but a dear friend of mine (who shall remain nameless to protect the very guilty).

"[So-and-So], what are YOU doing here?!" [So-and-So] tells me that he (I will at least reveal this person's gender) just got  busted for trying to fly a kite in the mall. They had run down those glorious steps pictured above, right into the arms of a mall Rent-A-Cop. And, no, the kite did not get an inch of lift.

Once [So-and-So] tells me what they were up to, they then in absolute bewilderment ask what I was doing in Ye Olde Mall Pokey--him being there made sense, and was just another day in the life of [So-and-So], business as usual, but my being there certainly was not. Naturally, I had to tell him.

This would not be the first time [So-and-So]  would have a run-in related to this person, but those are stories for another time.

Anyway, a friend of ours had to come and get us (because, fuck no, we are not calling our parents), and mumbled something about us both being idiots (but she still came and got us, soooooo).

Even after my sentence of 2 years was up, I wouldn't go back to that mall until 6 years later when I was working in San Mateo and my boss at the time (of a job I hated, another story for another time) had me go down there to buy socks for him. I nervously re-entered the store. Surely all this time had passed. No one would remember me. I could get in and out of this store without a hitch. No one from 2006 would still be working there!

Well, I was wrong. There were a couple of folks who very much still remembered me, recognized me, even though at this point I was dressed as an "adult" with much different hair, and were very happy to see me. I was what finally got rid of that person and they've been a happier store ever since. Told me that they still tell newbies the story of the day that happened. Swiped the employee discount card for me.

I've never been back since.