Merry Unrestrained Avarice

Somewhere there is a flack in the commercial property management office who maintains the magic spreadsheet that cooks together rent per square foot and the load for various commercial mortgages. Other factors like parking and traffic flow and insurance are added to the equation, but it all tumbles through the waterfall of numbers towards ROI and profitability for the owners and investors.

Damn that wide expanse of floor on the concourse between stores. Cram it with stalls that sell hair extensions, cell phone plans, or crazy knick-knacks! Make the customers churn around en masee during the shopping season, and assault them with music, bright lights, and large displays of attractive people to stir their consumer hearts and loosen the path towards righteous, high-volume credit transactions. Make ready the way of the 1st Quarter earnings report.

Every holiday season I make a trip to the Towne Center, a local Cincinnati mall, to do a little shopping. And every year I end up ready to throw capitalism over the side and give Marxism a whirl - often by the time I manage to park the car. This year required an extra helping of patience, since the trip involved girls aged 6 and 10 who wanted to choose a present for Mommy. Every single scented variety of lotion needed to be sniffed and discussed at length relative to various childlike misinterpretations of adult female taste. The bickering was endless - China and Taiwan probably find it easier to agree - but finally a proper selection had been made, and a place was taken in the long line snaking past the bright, distracting baubles towards the register where an overworked, space-cadet teenager snapped her gum and struggled to replace the paper in the credit card machine while long-dead crooners on the surround-sound demanded merriness from our bedraggled hearts.

Maybe these New Zealanders might have the right idea.