Bombs

Yesterday was Halloween at the mall. Or rather, it would have been Halloween at the mall if a certain set of events had not occured. Allow me to explain. Every year the stores at the mall choose a day when the employees may dress in costume and hand out candy if they wish from 6pm-8pm to children dressed in costumes. So, I was scheduled to work, and I decided I wanted to dress up in a pretty costume. My problem was, however, that I have no time to purchase a costume. I tried many possibilities but I ended up wearing a short flary skirt and a flowy, flary, shirt, my tiara, and wings. I had my mom bring everything except the wings to school where she picked me up and then transported me to the mall.

Once at the mall I purchased light up TinkerBell wings from the Disney store. This completed my costume as a Fairy Princess. I was very excited about work. I wanted to hand out candy and see all the kids in their adorable costumes. Andrea was also dressed up in a TinkerBell outfit (sans the wings). She was very excited as well.

So around 5:25 I took my break, that way I would be back in time to go on my candy passing out duty. Andrea was on break with me. When we finished eating we went in the back of Taco Bell and looked at all the candy. We heard a whistle blow out in the food court, Andrea and I got excited, we thought that the whistle would be a starting whistle for the Trick or Treating. We heard someone making an announcement but we couldnt hear what the person was saying, when the announcement was done everyone in the food court stood up. Andrea and I went to Mark (our boss) and asked if we could pass out the candy now.

He replied that we all had to leave the mall they were having an evacuation. We started walking towards the door and many thoughts were running through our heads. We thought that perhaps they wanted to get everyone out of the mall before the trick or treating so there would be a fair chance for everyone going through...then we realized this was ridiculous and they wouldn't send us out for that. Then we thought it must just be a drill. Mark told us to clock out of work and head outside, i went to grab my purse because it seemed logical to bring that with me, though I didn't grab my bag with my jeans and my jacket, assuming we would be back inside in a moments time anyways.

We assumed that it would take at most 10-30 min and then we would be back inside. We thought it absurd and stingy of Mark to make us clock out on our time cards. As I headed out I saw Bibi and Mark rushing to turn everything off and bring the money out of the register. As we rushed outside we heard that the evacuation was for a bomb threat. We weren't sure what to do as we got outside. Somehow our stores divided into two groups, i was with a group that left the front way, and the others left the back way. Once we got out the front door we realized several things:

1. We were not dressed for the cold weather
2. We were in the way of all the frantic people trying to leave
3. We weren't sure where to go.

We stood by the front entrance for a few moments until the police pushed us into the parking lot. We weren't sure to go, people kept telling us to move and all we could say was that we were mall employees we couldn't just leave. We decided the best course of action would be to go where all the other people from our work were, so we headed towards the back entrance. We went over to the group of people from our work, everyone had stayed to find out what was going on except August. She works with me, she is fairly new, has only been with us for a week or so. Perhaps she just hasn't become a part of our tightly knit group yet, or perhaps she just wanted to beat traffic.

Andrea and I still thought we would be going back to work in a bit once the scare was over. This was not the case, as we froze we watched helicopters circling, firetrucks lining up, ambulances coming in, and police cars surrounding. I had left my clothes inside, and Andrea had left her Calculus book, for the second night in a row it would have to sit there at work, her homework left undone.

Mark and Bibi came outside carrying Athena, who looked beautiful in her Belle costume, despite the tears streaming down her face. She had told me earlier that Halloween was her favorite day apart from Christmas. Mark and Bibi told us that we could go home because the mall wouldn't be opening up again today. We left to go to the movie theatre to warm up and go to the bathroom. Then Andrea's mother picked us up at the Walgreens. We told everyone that we met along the way the story of the horror that had occured.

Imagine ruining such an event for those children. Athena wasn't the only child reduced to tears. What a cruel heartless person. They should be punished.

What a night! We went to Eat-N-Park to eat and cool off, we told our story a couple more times. After so many tellings i'm sure i've forgotten some details.

Anyways, now that we aren't at work Andrea and I realized that this takes a real dent into our paycheck, and our company lost a lot of money, three doughs of pretzels...about 120 pretzels gone, salads gone, smoothie stuff gone, taco stuff gone. I don't think anyone put the fries away at steaks and fries, I hope they did, because if not that is about 3-4 bags of potatoes gone....each bag is 50 pounds...so 150-200 pounds of fries...gone. I really hope someone put them away before leaving.

We are hoping that this event will be rescheduled soon, we still have all the candy as well. at least 16 bags of 120 pieces each of candy. That is quite a lot that means at least 1920 pieces of candy. Good chocolate candy too, not just lollipops.

Anyways, I wish this hadn't happened, I was disappointed. But now I'm tired and I think I should probably sleep. That is what I shall do. Watch the news and look up the story of South Hills Village Mall. I haven't watched but apparently the bomb threat was on the news, makes sense with all the helicopters we saw.

Always Love