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Feb. 22nd, 2025 02:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vr_trakowskiWhen I was little, there was a store...
No, back up a step. When I was little, a new mall was built in our area. It was higher-end than the one we usually went to, with luxury-brand stores and gleaming metal and fountains, and (briefly) a restaurant that introduced me to the deliciousness of garlic and butter and Parmesan cheese all together. It had three floors, and while I'm not sure they ever managed to completely sell out the top floor, the bottom had two or three regular wings and one themed one.
I can't remember what it was called, but it was styled to look vaguely like a fantasy European street, with a cobbled floor and a narrower width; a little twisty, with hanging signs outside the little shops.
Only two of the stores there remain in my memory. One was a silversmith's (or, at least, a jewelry store specializing in silver, though I think they may have had a designer on board). The other was a toy store - small and independent.
I loved the silversmith, and in fact eventually saved up my pennies to buy a locket there (and still have it). But the toy store...
I never had a lot of pocket money, at least compared to what I see kids spend these days. I got an allowance, but it wasn't huge (I'm not being critical, that's just the way it was) and these were the days before I did a lot of babysitting. So most of what that shop sold was more expensive than whatever I had in my pockets on a given day.
But, oh, if I could go back...
It was crammed full of color and delight. It sold Sanrio goodies, and stuffed animals in the heyday of realistic-ish plushies, and hologram stickers, and, and, and. I dreamed for years about owning the stuffed unicorn head mounted on the wall. I couldn't tell you now most of what they sold, but I remember the layout of the place, and where the best things were.
But it closed before I earned any appreciable money, and now even the mall itself is gone. All the goodies, the gleaming lights, the expensive pretence that to an eight-year-old was just a fun made-up environment like an amusement park - there aren't even photos of that wing. It's all just in my head.
If I could go back for an hour, with the contemporary equivalent of my current disposable income...well. I'd make the shop's day and my year.
This is why I buy myself toys, on occasion. Or plushies. Or cheap-ass pencil cases with unicorns printed on them. Because they make my heart smile, and younger-me would have yearned over them. Older-me can satisfy that wanting, and enjoy the stickers, and fill the cheap pencil case with phone chargers or lip balm or whatever else fits.
I still would love that mounted unicorn head, though.
No, back up a step. When I was little, a new mall was built in our area. It was higher-end than the one we usually went to, with luxury-brand stores and gleaming metal and fountains, and (briefly) a restaurant that introduced me to the deliciousness of garlic and butter and Parmesan cheese all together. It had three floors, and while I'm not sure they ever managed to completely sell out the top floor, the bottom had two or three regular wings and one themed one.
I can't remember what it was called, but it was styled to look vaguely like a fantasy European street, with a cobbled floor and a narrower width; a little twisty, with hanging signs outside the little shops.
Only two of the stores there remain in my memory. One was a silversmith's (or, at least, a jewelry store specializing in silver, though I think they may have had a designer on board). The other was a toy store - small and independent.
I loved the silversmith, and in fact eventually saved up my pennies to buy a locket there (and still have it). But the toy store...
I never had a lot of pocket money, at least compared to what I see kids spend these days. I got an allowance, but it wasn't huge (I'm not being critical, that's just the way it was) and these were the days before I did a lot of babysitting. So most of what that shop sold was more expensive than whatever I had in my pockets on a given day.
But, oh, if I could go back...
It was crammed full of color and delight. It sold Sanrio goodies, and stuffed animals in the heyday of realistic-ish plushies, and hologram stickers, and, and, and. I dreamed for years about owning the stuffed unicorn head mounted on the wall. I couldn't tell you now most of what they sold, but I remember the layout of the place, and where the best things were.
But it closed before I earned any appreciable money, and now even the mall itself is gone. All the goodies, the gleaming lights, the expensive pretence that to an eight-year-old was just a fun made-up environment like an amusement park - there aren't even photos of that wing. It's all just in my head.
If I could go back for an hour, with the contemporary equivalent of my current disposable income...well. I'd make the shop's day and my year.
This is why I buy myself toys, on occasion. Or plushies. Or cheap-ass pencil cases with unicorns printed on them. Because they make my heart smile, and younger-me would have yearned over them. Older-me can satisfy that wanting, and enjoy the stickers, and fill the cheap pencil case with phone chargers or lip balm or whatever else fits.
I still would love that mounted unicorn head, though.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-05 05:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-06 12:00 am (UTC)Sometimes I try to look up photos of that mall, but they never have that wing in them, or if they do it's from much later when that shop was gone.