Down with the sameness

Pacing the corridors of a mall for the first time in ages, I muttered to my high school friend, "We could be walking anywhere in American right now."

Aside from department store anchors, I don't do malls anymore. Too much homogeneity, too staid and anti-sceptic, this marks a 180 degree turn from the boy wasting his prime high school Saturdays sitting among the Great Lakes Mall's fountains.

This epidemic has rage for decades and it approaches a critical point. I spent a few hours at a B & N with the same floor plan and merchandise (save the local section, as with all the company's other stores); not a thing in the entire shopping center beyond that one bank of shelves gave away my location as New Jersey.

Imagine amnesia today; wake up in one of these shopping centers, and you'd be hard-pressed to pluck the first clue. Pedestrian unfriendly and without a flourish to exclaim, no one wants anything but a branch to bear them in conformity's grove.

Melt down your identity, and let the chains go wild. It's the American way.