the fall of western civilization

Yesterday, I went to The Great Mall in Milpitas, to pick up a birthday present.

Let me tell you a bit about the Great Mall. It claims to be the largest mall in California, which I wouldn't doubt. The circumference of the inside of the mall is 2 miles. There are approximately 8000 parking spots, according to the website. It has a skate park, Dave and Busters, a huge movie theater, and well over 200 stores.

Guess what it doesn't have.

A fucking bookstore. Not one. There is a store that sells JUST JELLYBEANS. A store that just sells beanbags. I couldn't believe it. I wandered around a bit, then looked at the directory, and finally asked the woman at the help desk.

"What bookstores are in this mall?"
"Uhhh... I don't think we have any bookstores. Oh, wait, MediaPlay sells some books."

So I went over to MediaPlay, and they had a couple books shoved away in the back. Awful, inane tripe like Anne McCaffrey and Anne Rice, and a full set of fan fic books about Star Trek.

This blew my mind, and still does. Do people read so little in this day and age that having even ONE bookstore in the state's largest mall is unprofitable? What the hell is wrong with the savages in this state? I just wanted to grab some hip little skater kid by the shoulders and scream "READ A BOOK!".

Unbelievable. When I asked the woman for a bookstore, you would have thought I'd asked here where the store that sold records was. Or the abacus store.