Middle School Mall Rats: A Rant

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I get it - when kids are in seventh grade and their only mode of transportation is their moms' minivan, the mall is the cool place to be after school on Friday. Chesterfield Mall is particularly awesome for these wee teens, because not only can they shop and eat, but they can catch Hotel for Dogs at the new movie theater, too. Still, when it gets to the point that I can't even walk through the door without being hit by a wall of 13-year-olds, therein lies my problem with middle school mall rats.

Let me describe a typical Friday night at Chesterfield mall. After exiting a movie with my friend (a movie that was disrupted by masses of teens who arrived late and got kicked out for sneaking into the flick in the first place), we tried to get to the exit. Emphasis on TRIED. We were bombarded with what seemed like bus loads of teenagers squealing, yelling, texting and, well, acting like middle schoolers. Security was trying to oversee the waiting-for-mom process, but the odds were against them. At one point, as a group of girls in miniskirts (in December) almost ran me over, I overhead them making fun of a girl who had apparently caught the attention of their male cohorts: "Why is she, like, wearing that stupid black dress? Did she come from a funeral or something?" Yeah, because catty gossip like that is how I wanted to end my long work week.

And I'm not the only one who is now avoiding Chesterfield mall at all costs. St. Louisan Evie Wilkinson wasn't exactly a fan of the middle school mob either:

"You can no longer count on Friday evenings for leisure shopping or dinner at the mall. Dealing with hundreds of teens running around squealing and chasing their boyfriends around in their skimpy clothing can be especially weary around closing time. The teens pretty much wall off every entrance...the mall cops try to keep them in line while they wait for their mommies to pick them up, but..."

I realize that I do not have teenagers of my own, and while I sympathize with parents wanting a break from six shrieking sixth graders, don't I have a right to be able to walk out of the mall after a movie without having to enter a middle school mosh pit? According to Sean Phillips, the guy at Chesterfield Mall who is supposed to deal with people like me, they have a code of conduct on paper that they hand out to teenagers - and anyone else - who isn't abiding to the mall's courtesy code. I'm not really sure what a piece of paper really accomplishes, but until Chesterfield Mall decides to control middle school mass exits a bit differently, you won't catch me there after school gets out.