Lights Out at the Mall

We went to the mall tonight, and only one store was open. The rest of mall was shut down because of a power-outage. Apparently, a fuse had exploded in the Food Court and fouled up the wiring throughout the mall. The one open store had its own back-up generator, we were told.

The whole situation seemed to have symbolic meaning, but I couldn't quite grasp the meaning. I imagine the retailers were furious; this is the time of the year when they make their profits, or so I'm told. The King and Queen of the Food Court must have been furious. In the one store that was open, the drinking-fountain didn't work, and someone had put a sign up that said "Broken"--twice. I found that to be slightly mysterious. Below "Broken" appeared "Broken." I like it when businesses put up signs like that--hence this poem, written a while ago:

Excuse Our Mess

We’re slightly understaffed
today, so we ask that you
serve yourself some basic
humanity. We’ve had to
downsize our commitment,
so we no longer process mercy
at this branch. If you like,
we can take down your
information and enter it into
our database, where it will
remain forever young.

Copyright 2007 Hans Ostrom