Fountains of Youths

As a kid, I entered the mall food court with more than just my mom and 10 clammy dollars. I went in with a framework for what it Meant. The TV shows I obsessed over would airdrop their characters at the mall dressed in clothing far more disposable than the Styrofoam containers full of prop food they ate out of: There, they’d exchange information, silently judge one another, fall in love, and plot out the rest of their fictional lives in a way that made me want the same. The feeling blended with the taste, whether it came in the form of rubbery mystery meat from Sarku Japan or whatever vegetable they decided to put on top of the cardboard dough at Sbarro that week. I wasn’t allowed to be a mall kid, and I coped in a move so adjacent to Disney adults it makes my nose bleed — I’m a mall adult.