The mega-mall is no place for a cave man

Went to the mall the other day. Not just any mall; a super-mall in Detroit.

I was visiting my daughter, her Significant Other, and their five kids. Five kids is a lot, particularly when they run the gamut from sulky teenager to violently yodeling toddler. I love them all more than life itself, but not so much that I can stand to be cooped up in a house with the lot of them for more than a few hours at a time.

Which is why I was at the mall. I had already grabbed breakfast at my favorite Greek joint (Zorba’s), written my column for that week at my favorite post-hippie-nouveau-chic coffee house (Java Hut), and window shopped at a place called Junkyard Guitars (aptly named).

For me, these days, that’s a full day. But it wasn’t even 3:30. I had no intention of returning to my daughter’s home until it was a bit closer to the younger contingent’s respective bedtimes.

My daughter, who understands all too clearly the desire to occasionally escape the company of juveniles, suggested I try the mall.

Though I lived in Detroit for years, it was a mall I’d never visited before. This is not surprising; I avoid shopping whenever possible. Malls haven’t held much attraction for me since the early ‘80s, when I used to try to meet girls there.

But it was either the mall or entertaining 2-year-old Ari (his name, I believe, means “offspring of the Tasmanian Devil”) while my daughter nursed the baby. I chose the mall. It wasn’t a tough call.

Aubreii described it as “kind of upscale.” I don’t know when she inherited her millions, but “kind of upscale” doesn’t begin to scratch the surface. This place had a few stores I’d heard of, but have never been to. Nordstrom. Sak’s Fifth Avenue. Leon’s Big Money Pit.

OK, I made that last one up, but you get the idea. The kind of mega-shops that feature distressed T-shirts “on sale” for $400. There was a jewelry store there, a few of them, in fact.

Working up my courage, I casually strolled into one, thinking I might pick up a cute little necklace or something for Mrs. Taylor (formerly Lori Frankforter). I was looking to drop as much as fifty bucks.

I knew I was in trouble when not one, but three sales clerks – wearing suits that cost more than my car – descended on me. One offered me a glass of Riesling. She assured me it was a good year. I told her it would be a pleasure to drink wine that didn’t come out of a box for a change.

After that, two of the clerks suddenly remembered they had other business to attend to. The one still stuck with me did not seem thrilled with the prospect, but was determined to make the best of it.

A professional.

“What can I show you?” is what she said. What she meant was, “Something from our ‘found in the parking lot’ collection, perhaps?”

I told her I needed some earrings for my wife. How expensive can a pair of earrings be, right? So I thought.

The clerk showed me a few different “moderately priced” sets. Apparently “moderately” has a different meaning in this mall than in the real world. Oh, I could have bought them. But it would have meant first donning a ski mask and knocking over a few rural banks.

I’m not sure my Catholic upbringing would allow that. So I left without the earrings, and without my wine. For some reason, it never quite made it out to me.

Riding the skywalk conveyor (when you shop here, you don’t have to walk, baby!) from the north side of the mall to the south, I took my first close look at the other shoppers. Everyone, every single one of them, man, woman and child, was prettier than me. And better dressed.

I felt like a Neanderthal shambling into an encampment of homo sapiens. I figured it was only a matter of time before security rolled up on a Segway and helped me decide to vacate the premises, so instead I did it on my own.

On the ride back to Aubreii’s I stopped at a Trader Joe’s and bought a couple bottles of Three Buck Chuck. I’m not sure if it was a good year, unless last week was a good year, but for three bucks, it’s OK wine.

Went well enough with the barbecue my daughter put together that evening. Served on paper plates left over from somebody’s birthday party.

It was interesting to peek into the glitterati lives of the “other half,” but all-in-all, I’m pretty happy right where I am. Besides, being so pretty all-day-every-day would take more effort than I’m willing to exert.

mtaylor325@gmail.com

(616) 730-1414

No matter where you go, chances are you’ll wind up living in a small town

When I moved two years ago from the tiny burg of Lakeview to the bustling metropolis of Detroit, I was worried. I had been living in Lakeview for nearly 15 years and had grown accustomed to life in a community where the sidewalks roll up promptly every night at seven. I knew not only my neighbors, but most of the folks who lived on the next block over, and the block after that. After the third block it was mostly cornfields as far as the eye can see.

How would I fare in the big city? I wondered. I was a country mouse, coming from a world in which the biggest traffic hazards were Amish buggies, combines and the occasional deer. In my new neighborhood, traffic hazards are…well…traffic. Hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of cars blast past my front door on a daily basis, all driven by people in a big hurry to get where they’re going, which—judging by the number who text while they drive—is the afterlife. I wouldn’t mind so much were it not for the fact they seem determined to take me with ‘em.

The thing I liked least about life in “The D” was the anonymity. I knew no one and no one knew me. Every face belonged to a stranger. Detroit seemed a place of monumental disconnection; I could have been living on the moon.

But we human beings (I consider myself to be one despite the disparaging comments of various ex-wives) are a resilient species. We adapt to our surroundings and over the past two years or so, I’ve adapted to mine. And I’ve done so in much the same was as the rest of the folks living there: I built a small town right in the heart of the big city.

It began with my basement apartment. That by itself was a little too small, even for me. So I annexed the upstairs apartment and granted my daughter and grandkids citizenship. The guy living next door joined up next, mostly because he likes to drink beer and I usually have some in the fridge.

I needed groceries, so I invaded Aven’s convenience store a couple blocks away and claimed aisles two (Ramen noodles) and three (pistachio nuts) in the name of Taylorville. Aven, who hails from Baghdad and is used to regime changes, didn’t mind, so long as I paid for the stuff I plundered.

Man cannot live by Ramen alone, however, so I was forced to conquer a couple nearby restaurants, Moose Winooski’s and Zorba’s. I tried to annex the Albanian coffee shop, but the Albanians hate me for some reason; mostly, I’m guessing, because I am not Albanian. (One of the first things you learn in the big city is that not all bigots are white.) Anyway, it was obvious they were going to put up a fight, so I adopted the Caribou Coffee place down the street instead. The coffee’s not as good, and I hate the fact they always try and up-sell me a bagel every morning, but they do have fast wifi and don’t hate me because I can’t speak Albanian.

I’m now on a first-name basis with maybe 100 Taylorville residents and the list grows every day. Not all my subjects recognize, or even acknowledge the fact they’re living in Taylorville. They think I’m living in Smithtown, Johnsonville or even Avenburg.

It doesn’t really matter what you call it. The point is, working together, we’ve managed to carve out our own small town, one in which we can all feel comfortable and at home. If I could only annex a couple Amish, I’d be all set.

Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

I swear I never meant to shoot the guy

I once shot a man.

Boy, when you come right out and say it like that, it sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? Of course, there were extenuating circumstances. The guy was robbing me. The shooting was an accident. And the offending projectile was not a bullet, but a six-inch long arrow.

Maybe I’d better start at the beginning.

I was 19, living in a third floor efficiency apartment in a less-than-hospitable section of Detroit. I made a passable living as the bassist and token white guy in a blues band playing various clubs up and down Telegraph Road. Live music was the thing in those days, and we played five, sometimes six nights a week, so most evenings, my apartment was empty until well after 3 a.m.

On this particular night, however, I had called in sick with a terrible case of the flu. By 10 p.m., I was in bed, heavily sedated with over-the-counter flu meds, and sleeping like a baby—a sick and drugged out baby.

It must have been around midnight when I first noticed the light slanting into my combination living/bedroom from out in the hallway.

Being “Nyquil-ized,” I rose to wakefulness slowly. It took a full minute before I realized I wasn’t alone in the room. Someone—from my perspective only a dark shadow silhouetted against the hall light—was riffling through my dresser, methodically opening each drawer, inspecting its contents, then moving on to the next.

Like most folks living in the neighborhood, my apartment door sported the Detroiter’s vertical line of deadbolt locks. In my drug-induced haze, I had forgotten to engage any of them, and the guy currently checking out my underwear and socks had simply waltzed on in.

Because of the questionable geniality of the neighborhood and my desire to live beyond my teen years, I always slept with a small, pistol-type crossbow secured between my bed and nightstand. It had all the stopping power of a BB gun, but I somehow felt safer knowing I wasn’t the only resident in the apartment complex sleeping unarmed.

Moving slowly, as quietly as possible, I wrapped my fingers around the crossbow’s pistol-grip and pointed it in the general direction of the intruder. It was—I swear—my intention to point only, and use my manliest voice to bark out something like, “Do you feel lucky punk? Well, do ya?”

It never got that far. Nervously raising the crossbow, I exerted just a touch too much pressure on the trigger. Thwap! The tiny arrow flew, passed through the intruder’s left cheek (the cheek south of his beltline), and thwunked into the opposite wall.

Emitting a yowl I can only describe as a cross between a deranged yodeler and a bobcat snagged in a barbed wire fence, the intruder grabbed his backside with both hands and bolted out the door.

Though positive I was going to wind up doing hard time at Jackson, I called the police anyway. The two cops from Detroit metro who showed up half-an-hour later took the report, giggling like schoolgirls throughout most of my narrative.

“He should be easy to find,” said the older officer. “We’ll check the emergency rooms for a guy with an arrow hole in his butt.”

That was the last I heard about it. This was Detroit in the ‘70s and the cops had bigger fish to fry.

I left the arrow stuck in the wall as a reminder. Sick or not, I never again forgot to lock my door.



More “Reality Check” online at http://mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or www.milive.com. E-mail Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

From brown to gray – riding with the kids and its affect on hair

I was in court this morning, lending moral support and questionable legal advice to my youngest son, age 17. James is a good kid, but one with dubious driving skills and a right foot that’s apparently too heavy to maintain the exact posted speed limit.

The infraction that landed him before the prosecutor was exceedingly minor, so much so that the case was dismissed, sans fine, jail time, points, or a speedy execution. James was relieved, as he had been lead to believe (by me) that the judge might hand down any or all of those sentences, depending on his mood.

A good scare goes a long way toward lightening that right foot, I believe.

I’m hoping in the future he’ll be more careful.

But the truth is, of my three kids James is probably the safest driver. My older children, Aubreii and Jordan, both in their mid-twenties, represent the kind of traffic menace rarely seen outside movies starring Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis.

I’m thinking about this now because I just returned from a weekend visit to Detroit, where Aubreii and Jordan now both reside. Jordan was working the big auto show there as a GMC rep, so I spent most of the weekend with my daughter.

My pickup seats only two and we had the grandkids with us most of the time, so Aubreii drove … through Detroit traffic … on icy, snowy roads … with screaming toddlers in the backseat … and the radio blasting … and the GPS yakking its digital head off in a futile effort to get Aubreii to turn at the proper intersections.

Tires squealed. I squealed. Cars swerved. Impolite hand gestures were exchanged.

And through it all, my darling daughter barely batted an eyelash. As my grasping fingers disappeared into the dashboard, she chatted unconcernedly about her new clients, the kids’ teachers and the interesting interview she heard recently on This American Life.

From time to time, she would glance at the road, but it was obvious the view didn’t hold much interest for her.

To make matters worse, my daughter drives one of those fuel-efficient, tiny Japanese cars. I’ve picked bigger things off the back of a hound dog. After years of looking down on traffic from the seat of my pickup, I feel incredibly vulnerable riding in any car that offers a clear view of the underside of most semi trailers.

Finally, there’s the fact that everyone in Detroit – every driver, at least – is actively trying to kill me.

Now, I lived in Detroit for years and got used to the traffic there. I’m sure there was a time when I drove like they all do. (Insanely.)

But for the past 15 years or so I’ve made my home in a town that makes Mayberry look like Manhattan. The only traffic problem I’m used to is slow-moving Amish buggies. Seriously, I can walk faster than the speed limit in my tiny burg.

So Detroit, my daughter, her Barbie-mobile … they all took their toll this past weekend.

I wonder if that Grecian Formula stuff really gets rid of grey hair.

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or driving tips for teenagers, e-mail mtaylor325@gmail.com or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Miss a week? More Reality Check online at www.mlive.com/advancenewspapers.