The clerks were standing around in the fancy lotion shop, pretending to look busy. No one was even inside looking. The only customer in the home electronics store appeared to be returning something. The shoe store had a few shoppers, but there was plenty of room to walk around without running into anyone.

The few people ambling around the uncrowded mall were not carrying shopping bags. They stopped at the kiosks in the main aisle and looked at the tie-dyed T-shirts and the calendars and the gold necklaces, but pretty much everyone who wanted a gold necklace already had one. The CD/DVD store looked pretty empty, too. The fancy card shop was deserted; the As Seen on TV store, empty.

It was 4 in the afternoon on a weekday. Most people were still at work except for teenage girls, who arrived in groups of three or four and disappeared into the movie theater. Maybe all these stores are packed the rest of the time, but while I was there, the mall was scarily empty. Maybe when the movies let out there is a rush.