I'm not interested

Once, when I was younger, malls were filled with mostly apparel stores, and apart from those, there was the occasional calendar kiosk, or the Orange Julius. To take a break from the stores, you could meander around the center of the mall, people watch, and generally be left to mind your own business. Admittedly, I do not spend a whole lot of time at malls, because I have become a predictable old fart, and they mostly annoy me.

In any case, after my most recent episode of losing the seam in my pants, I trudged over to the Source shops in Long Island, knowing Ann Taylor Loft was having a sale. (I never in a million years thought I would shop at Ann Taylor Loft, but there you go). Anyway, I noticed the abundance of kiosks everywhere. It was like an obstacle course dodging all of the crappy body jewelry, belt buckles, and flimsy toys they were all selling. But here is one other difference that I have noticed: Instead of just hawking the usual dry goods that are normally available in boutiques, mall kiosks are more commonly carrying the infomercial-type products. I saw one woman lovingly stroking a clump of fake hair as she attached it to a trellis full of other multicolored falls and ponytail holders. I saw another patting the ionizing flat irons that come in pink and blue. I saw the Proactive booths (hard for me to criticize, since I am a customer, but there you go).

I saw these same salespeople not waiting for customers to line up, but rather shouting at passerbys about their phone plans and did they want to check out painted hermit crabs? I headed out of Ann Taylor Loft, and I saw a woman who had successfully snagged some family with a young hispanic girl. The product appeared to be some kind of hand lotion or something. I saw that the other saleslady did not have a customer, and she was trawling. So, I did my best job of being invisible, and looked down at my feet to avoid eye contact, much how I deal with the homeless. I am five feet or so in the other direction when she says, "Miss", and I think, "Oh Damn. Almost." I turn around, and she asks in a thick Russian accent, "May I ask you a question?" and then abruptly takes my hands. I stood there, contemplating what to say, and she says, "Are your nails natural?" After deciding that she meant was whether or not my nails were acrylic, but still annoyed that she was touching me, I said, "Yes, but you shouldn't touch my hands. I have Herpetic Whitlow. It's like Herpes, but you get it on your hands. It's transmitted via hand contact." She dropped my hands like the plebian who can't afford her lotion that I am.

I was so thankful that I remembered what hand herpes is called. My dad told me about it once. In the future, I think I may tell the guy selling purses that look like Yorkshire Terriers that I am homeless. I will tell the painted crab man that I wouldn't want my pubic crabs to get jealous. I will tell the lady selling partial wigs that I have an abundance of back hair, and so I won't be needing any falls. The game of "I'm just looking" just got so much better.