The directory is out of date and you can never find the shop you want. Even if you do find the shop you want, it won't have what you want. Or it will be too expensive, or it won't come in blue.

The sales-person will usually be someone young and pretty with spiked up hair and at least one piercing, or some crusty old fart who hates their life. Regardless, they shop in the same mall they serve. They are just like you, and they know it. So they have no problem telling you that what you were looking for was discontinued, or they can order it in but no guarantees as to when it will get there. Besides, why did you want that, anyway? It's so last season. If you really want value for money ...

So you shamble from store to store, buying a heap of crap in an attempt to displace the memory of your true desire. Ultimately this makes you doubly unhappy, from the crushing dissatisfaction as well as the revulsion of your compromise.

But what else can you do? If you go to a mall and choose not to shop, people look at you funny. Even the lumberjack-shirted, ugg-boot wearing, pram-pushing middle-class wanna-bes will think you're a retard. Why are you denying yourself? Ýou're such a miser. Money's only good for one thing, you can't take it with you. You can't always get what you want. Don't be so fussy. Don't be so critical. You're not making the most of your experience.

But let's face it, until now your experience has been nothing but struggle. Struggle to drive there, struggle to find a  park. Struggle to walk in, find an (out-of-date) directory or a concierge desk that's manned. To top it off, the struggle to accept that while everyone else seems to be content with what they have, i.e. PVC bags full of consumer dross, you find the thought bitterly shameful. If you leave empty-handed now, without even a smoothie or a handy hint on re-lining your jacket from one of the sales staff, then it will all seem like a total waste.

The real waste is staying there one second longer than you have to. The struggle of coming, the struggle of going; both are fixed costs and cannot be ameliorated by the piles of junk we pile into our trunks. Leaving after finding our desires frustrated is valid, and that revelation is the nearest to heaven we get; until we realise that our only other choices are more shopping malls.