Sunday, May 20, 2007

Score a point for martial law

Last night, I took the oldest three Sons to the mall. This is a bigger deal than you might realize, as our mall is an hour away. We go maybe twice a year, when Son #1 needs to see the kindred spirits at Hot Topic.

Our mall has had some problems, in recent years, with assaults and roaming wads of rambunctious teenagers. So I told the Sons, in the car, that I would gladly take them to any store they wanted to visit, but they had to be with me. Because unaccompanied youths are banned, in our mall, on a Saturday night. The boys thought this was blatant age discrimination. (and plenty of people think it is racist, too, but I didn't go into that)

I had no idea, though, that since our last visit the mall had totally beefed up security. There were not just mall security guard types, but actual law enforcement officers, everywhere. Which was a little disconcerting, at first, but after a while you realized that the increased police presence had pretty much eliminated the marauding teen thing. It was just families, shopping, and eating in the food court. No bad language. No shoving. No groups of kids staring you down if you ask to be let past them to the sale at Lane Bryant.

We had a good time.

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