For three days out of the week, I basically live in a mall. For 11 hours, I sit in the middle of everything and everyone. For 11 hours, I get to hear parts of the most inane conversations ever to take place on this planet. For 11 fucking hours, I get to deal with people who are – at best – social science experiments gone horribly wrong. this is what I do for 11 hours a day, and these are some of my stories.

Pt. 1: The man with the silver tongue

Sitting here all day brings by a variety of people. From the well-do-gooders, to the worst white trash you could imagine and everything in between. Sometimes we get the homeless too, who have come into the mall to get out of the terrible weather or what have you going on outside. Most of them are decently okay, if not for their insane and eccentric ways that hobo life has brought with it that they sometimes exhibit. For example, one man had a nervous tick where he would occasionally shout “WHOOP”. Sort of like you could be having a totally normal conversation with him, and suddenly he would just shout “WHOOP”. I think the best thing about him was that he seemed to totally not notice that he did it. To him, it was perfectly normal for him to shout “WHOOP” right in the middle of telling you how great it is eating food off the street.

Half expecting him to follow it up with “THERE IT IS” the first few times he did it, I quickly realized this man was probably crazy, as a few days later he came back and tried to hit on the girl that works in the Aldo shoe store next to me. I really didn’t hear much of what went on, but the girl’s face quickly changed from “I’m being nice because I’m being paid to be” to “Call security” pretty quick after he seemed to make a comment about her ass followed by his trademark “WHOOP”. Only this time it didn’t come out once.

It came out no less than a dozen times in a row.

So what you ended up with was her staring out at me completely terrified, while a large homeless man continuously shouts “WHOOPWHOOPWHOOPWHOOP” at her. Possibly brought on by the sudden excitement of hitting on a girl. Kind of like how a person’s stuttering gets worse the more nervous they get. The sheer excitement of hitting on her made this poor man whoop like some strange defective goose, making an awkward situation ten times worse.

Security came a few minutes later and escorted him out.

I never saw him again.