American Psyche

A Minneapolis mall offers a virtual reality ride across the US — a fitting symbol of how far the American dream has come without actually going anywhere.

- Aaron Millar

Shopping malls give me panic attacks. Spending the afternoon in a white box with nothing but muzak, bright lights and advertising is like inviting me to lunch in a padded cell. Sure I can come, but don’t blame me if I start screaming. I’m a commando shopper. I don’t browse, I bee-line. They call it retail therapy; I call it credit card waterboarding.

But then I discovered the Mall of America. At 5.6 million sq ft, enormous doesn’t quite do this Minneapolis behemoth justice. Forty million people come here annually — more than the population of Canada. Spend five minutes inside each of its 520-plus stores and you’d be shopping for more than 43 hours straight. By all accounts, I should have been foaming at the mouth. But I loved it in the way that we love spicy food that hurts or that annoying song we can’t stop singing. And here’s why: the Mall of America isn’t really about shopping, it’s about an experience; and that says something about how this country has been changing.