The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Being an adventurous yahoo, a curious sort, I ventured up north into the Cascade Mall, our local temple of consumerism in its heyday, now … well, a fluorescent and ghoulish mausoleum, mostly shuttered storefronts with a few zombies roaming the long corridors in search of the last remaining merchandise. Scary place on a rainy afternoon. Not even the teenagers hang here for social hour anymore, no doubt preferring to sex-text from the privacy of their homes.

I can remember when the mall got built, 1989, just north of the Skagit River on the road that connected Mt. Vernon to Burlington which became, instead of a sleepy two lane stretch with dying businesses, a four lane highway to Sears and Penneys and Macys in a gleaming half a million square foot emporium of commerce. The little strip malls of Mt. Vernon emptied in the wind that sucked the life out of them and downtown too. Outlet malls sprung up with the speed of overnight mushrooms, bursting through pavement and fill dirt. Burlington was on the map. When Arcan Cetin walked into the women’s department of Macys in 2016 and shot dead five people, the mall was already wobbling from the Great Recession’s toll of nearly ten years. Scary place indeed!

But here I am, looking for an oversized Pyrex baking pan that I couldn’t find in my usual thrift stores. Well, one scratched up one that I can go back to if need be…. I am a bit stunned at the vacancies of this place, entire wings with no stores, the main corridor empty except for odd little clothing boutiques, Victoria’s Secret, nails and pedicure salons, most devoid of any shoppers, some devoid even of salesclerks. But I stumble down to Macys bestrewn with banners announcing their Big Closing Sale, 50% off Everything in the Store! Boy, howdy, my lucky day.

Surprisingly the shelves are mostly still stocked. I wander with two other people through the kitchen stuff, find what I’m looking for and announce myself at the cash register, figuring sirens and lights would clamor forth with a small celebration of a Purchase! An elderly clerk asks if I’m ready and I nod a vociferous affirmation, you bet I’m ready to save half the price of this Pyrex beauty. He fumbles for a sheet of figures, mutters that he has difficulty with the calculations for housewares and, helpful as can be, I say 50%, like all the banners all around the store trumpet. Not too hard, eh?

But no, he informs me solemnly, housewares is only 25% off. I rebut that the signs all say Storewide 50% on Everything. Got him there, I’m sure. But mais no, monsieur, he tells me, the sign says UP TO 50%. If it does, you would need a microscope to see that miniscule caveat, but I know when I’m beaten, I know a bait and switch when I fall for one, and I also know there is no way on god’s warming earth I’m paying one dime more than 50% off the sticker price, plus, I remember why I never come to places like this to shop. Or will again.

Of course I also know by the time I drive back to Goodwill for that scratched Pyrex, some more savvy shopper will have grabbed it. Time, I suppose, to shop Ebay with the full appreciation that this will be another nail in the coffin that is … or was … Cascade Mall.

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