Park Place Mall — Attraction in Tucson

So I was enjoying my typical Sunday ritual which was catching the NFL games with a sketchy divorced dude named Clyde at Applebee’s where i’ve been sloshing down their NFL beer buckets for weeks but Clyde turned me onto their new holiday promotion drinks including, but not limited to, the $7 Berry Merry Colada and the $5 Tipsy Reindeer. So after about 5 of those each and screaming ourselves hoarse at the TV screens even during the commercials, Clyde threw up aggressively all over the bar top either out of excitment or the shrimp alfredo wasn’t agreeing with him this time. So he got kicked out again and called an Uber home and I had to quickly find somewhere else to go to ride the tipsy reindeer wave. I was vaping and having deep existential thoughts in that Applebee’s parking lot (also a weekly Sunday ritual) when I looked over yonder and saw Park Place Mall.

It also dawned on me that this week is a very important one. One very important day is upon us where we can all give thanks and celebrate harvest and appreciate the blessings of this glorious year. One day where we truly can all come together and harmonize in the collective recognition that we each harbor the uncontrollable and truly American impulse to buy stuff we really, really don’t need in order to fill the deep, sad, gaping holes in our unfulfilled lives: Black Friday! Yippee!

Now, sure, I could have gone home and hopped on Amazon or the dark web to take advantage of what has slowly become Black Friday week in my crusty gym shorts and let the overworked, underpaid delivery elves bring me my treasures, but that would take away from the fun of walking around a mall and observing NPC behavior, waking up the sleeping old dude in the massage chairs with a loud clap, eating dipping dots inside of a diamond store or avoiding eye contact with the kiosk vultures. So much adventure to be had by walking around the manifestation that is everything so wrong and so right about America. So I began walking and finally reached the concrete gates of capitalist splendor to see if Black Friday Week had wrapped its tentacles around good old fashioned analog shopping.

Much to my half-drunk chagrin, I didn’t see any big ribbons, big black balloons nor any spinning signs or circus folk promoting the sacred black friday holiday week in the mall. I was slightly concerned, so I made my way across the various storefronts to speak to each brand ambassador and see what the deal was with deals.

I, first, bee-lined it to Cinnabon because if there was buy one, get one cinnapack then I was gonna pretend to be interested in gifting someone and then eat both in the car. I waited in line behind some cinna-jerks and then got to the register where my berry vodka breath permeated the conversational air. “Hey cinnabon employee, do you have any black friday cinna-deals? They shook their head no and said they have their peppermint frosting specialty going on though. I instantly cinnamon rolled my eyes and then was about to walk away but instead decided to order one of those ooey-gooey center-of-the-roll nugget cups because the devil was winning today.

I shuffled my way over to Victoria’s Secret where there WAS a black friday deal for 30% off bras and panties but I felt like a creep standing in the middle of there with my mouth open inhaling gooey cinnamon roll centers shamelessly while breathing heavily. The manager, probably Victoria, was eye-balling me so I got out of there quick.

So I went into VANS where slobs like me would be more accepted but by the time I walked in and tried to act like a cool skater dude, my blood sugar or something was acting up or the Tipsy Reindeer finally got his hooves in me and I was getting light-headed. Suddenly I fell over and knocked over some skater shoe rack and then woke up to security over me and some stoner kids laughing and pointing. I was escorted out like a thanksgiving leper while screaming “USA USA USA” & everyone clapped. Then I went home and bought some manscaping tools and cheeze-its on Amazon. I win but either way great...

Park Place isn't what it used to be. Most of the useful, practical shops are gone. They have been replaced by a plethora of stores focusing on teenagers. Many places there are tremendously overpriced; products are of low quality craftsmanship. Mall clientele has greatly changed, a natural side effect of the stores brought in. There are often gangbangers loitering throughout the mall.

I gave Park Place a couple stars, thanks to a couple things they have done right. The mall doors have an automatic opening button for customers using mobility devices and for families with strollers. A family bathroom is available in the southeast corner of the food court, along with standard bathrooms. The regular bathrooms have plenty of stalls to go around, at least in the food court bathrooms. There are a couple more bathroom locations in the mall, but I will not use them. To access them, you have to go down a really long hallway to reach the bathroom all the way at the end. I don't feel the locations and how they are set up are safe.

Customers with disabilities, mostly wheelchair or walker users, will find most of the stores extremely difficult, if not impossible, to maneuver through. Some stores will have an employee offer assistance by retrieving items and bringing them to the customer near the entrance. Other stores don't seem to care whatsoever about their aisles being incredibly narrow; it is ridiculous that a small manual wheelchair, a walker, or a stroller, do nothing but get stuck in tight aisles and in between kiosks.

The other positive is the food. They have some typical chain places (McDonald's), but there are other options for better eating, such as Sarku.

Speaking of food, don't miss out on candy store Fuzziwigs, located just dad's around the corner from the movie theaters. The shop has fresh fudge in great flavors, plus freshly made turtles, peanut butter cups, truffles, etc. They also have a great stock of popular candy, but even better is their stock of awesome candies and goodies from decades past. A wheelchair can maneuver the small shoppe just fine. The corners are a bit tight but still doable. Oh and check their small sale/clearance rack...

Took my granddaughter to Park place Mall so she could buy some fidgets from the fidget fender in the aisle. Asked how much two fidgets were going to cost was told two for $24 was given a receipt that the ink was barely visible on. Check my bank account this morning $43.98 from the fidget store. Go back to fidget store a different woman who was not there the evening before looks at me and tells me no I told you $24 each. I don't know about anybody else but 24 and 24 is 48. I point out how her math doesn't add up so she gets on her calculator and starts doing math until she figures out that $20 plus $20 plus tax equals $43.98. I found a more employee and said I wanted to make a complaint and his attitude was what I just needed to buy stuff like that elsewhere and not from the vendor in the middle of their mall. Maybe the vendors in the middle of their Mall should have price tags either on the items or on the shelves by the items or maybe people should just quit buying at Park place Mall for a while and they might wake up and realize that yes they are responsible for what their vendors do and do not do on...