Anyone experiencing more malaise this holiday season – or is it just me?
It was four days before Halloween, and the Burbank Town Center was already looking, feeling, and smelling like Christmas. I had an hour to kill before my showing of Bugonia started at the AMC on the third floor of the mall. A quick browse through Bath & Body Works turned into an onslaught of green, red, and silver displays of lotions, hand wash, and candles – all attempting to emulate the scents of the holidays. Peppermint this , sugarplum that. I had missed my chance to take advantage of the fall-themed body wash sale that ended the previous weekend. Screw the autumn harvest; you're gonna smell like Mrs. Claus's cookies before Tom Turkey rears his wattle in November goddammit! Meanwhile, past the escalators and signage promoting Mrs. Field's latest, the gaping entrance to Macy's twinkled from afar. I could see the garland and boughs of holly above the perfume counters, resurrected early from storage, hovering above the jaded salespeople like an ominous message: ...
