I don’t even understand Bakers Square… You just go there and eat different kinds of pie? Who does that? I guess a lot of people must because there are, like, a million of them around the country. BUT… not in Hopkins! I don’t know the dirty details of that particular closing – I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that it looked like this:
Ah, the strip mall… Last time I counted, there were 64,840 of them in the U.S…
I love suburban shopping centers. I do! Drop me anywhere in the country and I know I can have my ears pierced, eat a cinnabon, try out a massage chair, buy a cell phone, get my hair cut, rent a wedding dress and now – at Burnsville Marketplace – pick up a bottle of wine. I might actually live in my car in the mall parking lot.
Winter in Minnesota is considered purgatory by most scholars. Six (plus) months of penance per year seems about right for the sins of the other seasons. Nat spends the Winter punishing himself on his stationary bicycle – hour after hour in his damp, cold cellar (I just threw those adjectives in – I’m sure his Edina basement is neither damp nor cold) pedaling his little heart out. Before Summer, he must spin the wheel of the stationary bicycle a lot. 5,000 miles – to be exact. I did some complicated geographical calculations and figured out that if Nat pedaled in the real world, he could get to Argentina.
How could I possibly resist adding to the Shopping Mall page on Wikipedia??