October 22, 2016 – Maple Grove, Minnesota

Do we really need twenty-seven clothing stores here?

Thoughts from a man who has grown to despise shopping malls. Unfortunately (but most importantly, fortunately) for me, I picked up a temporary job within walking distance from my older brother’s apartment, and that job just happens to be in “The Shoppes at Arbor Lakes.” Ugh. To make things worse, they even have speakers planted in the ground that continuously pump out the latest garbage music.

Thank heavens.

After visiting Miri, I decided to come back to Minnesota for a month or two to help my mom move into a new house and hopefully make some money since I wasn’t doing anything of that nature in Bozeman for the last two months. Being in debt sucks. My oldest brother (Brad) graciously agreed to house me during this time. It’s nice spending more time around him since we didn’t grow up together. We currently have opposite work schedules, but we still get some bonding time.

I walk past Victoria’s Secret. Buckle. Express. I see people walking by. Parking their cars. Sitting in their cars, looking down at their smart phones. Wait…

…how many times in the last few weeks have I seen people just sitting in their cars on their phones?

I’m sure the number is alarmingly high. Is it because I’m walking through parking lots to get to work? Is there a correlation there? People on their work breaks? Texting before they drive to their next destination? I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but of course my mind goes directly to the opposite assumption.

Do we not have anything better to do with our time?

“It’s hard to think of any tool, any instrument, any object in history with which so many developed so close a relationship so quickly as we have with our phones.” – Nancy Gibbs