Hangout Review
Woodfield Shopping Center
Schaumburg, IL
December 19, 2004
Twenty-five miles west of Chicago, the Woodfield Shopping Center is the metro-area’s largest mall, and if I am to believe their website‘s claim, Illinois’ number-one tourist attraction.
A fucking mall.
Some of the nation’s most extravagant and unique museums are in Chicago. An amazing aquarium. Two massive, throbbing skyscrapers. Even Wrigley Field would be a less-depressing tourism-topper than a climate-controlled bazaar with 300 stores.
"Shopping is an integral and, arguably, the most important element of the travel experience for people who travel and shop," says Leslie Burbank, tourism specialist at Woodfield.
Shit, you’re right Leslie. People who travel and shop probably do enjoy a good trip to the shopping center. With logic-humping intelligence like that at your disposal, I can fully understand why you make three times as much money as I do.
I don’t know why I’m so bitter. I had a pretty good time. Traffic was clogged and it took nearly two hours to get there, but my fiancé and I got to snuggle in the back seat while our friends JC and Sybil navigated the toll ways in their Honda. It was fifteen degrees below zero, but we found a parking spot about twenty paces from the Sears entrance, and within minutes of exiting the car, we were standing in line at a small Starbuck’s outpost right in the thick of retail mayhem. A hideous WASP woman chastised us for not letting her bisect our two-couple huddle, but we made fun of her unreasonable disposition, and she went quiet. My burning desire for an egg-nog latte was nearly squelched by the rank odor of fruit-perfumed body potions, as the coffee stand was equidistant from a Bath and Body Works and The Body Shop. It was if each was trying to outdo the other by pumping out more potpourri vapor.
Amazingly, I kept my appetite for bourgeoisie bean-drink, and soon, I was a picture-perfect traveling shopper. I’d traversed nearly thirty miles, I had my energy-drink and I was ready to feather the pucker of commerce.
All told, I bought a black scarf from Banana Republic, for my fiancé. That and our meal at Red Robin.
Leslie would be so damn proud of me.
