….so yesterday I hit up the shops at the Old Orchard mall in the lovely village of Skokie, IL. Old Orchard is an outdoor mall but not in the sense that I am used to. The outdoor aspect is an interior promenade so driving up to the mall you think you’re going to a standard mall. You enter through an anchor store (in my case, Bloomingdales) and then enter the mall.

Except B-dales had several different exits which went to the parking lot. The exit to the mall itself didn’t appear like one because it was an outdoor exit into a sparsely populated section of the mall, I thought it was another parking lot.
So there I was walking aimlessly through Bloomingdales will no real idea of what the hell I was doing or where I was going.

The cure? My cell phone. I knew I looked stupid but rather than ask for directions I merely busted out my cell phone and called my voicemail while I took stock of my situation. So I’m wandering around trying to get my bearings (was there a second floor exit to the mall? I don’t know but I looked) all the while listening to voicemails saved from weeks ago. None of the associates in the store were any wiser, to them I was a purposeful shopper coordinating some large purchase on his cell phone.

My cell phone was my crutch and saved me from asking what surely would have been an embarrassing situation of asking “How the hell do I get out of this store?” It made it look like I was just killing time until I got off my call.

This can be used pretty much anywhere, you’re welcome.