Thirty. That's the number of kids I counted at the mall this afternoon, which I thought was more than a little odd since I was at the mall from around noon till two and I'm like ninety-five percent sure today's not Columbus Day. I'm not talking about little tots getting pushed around in strollers either; I mean children old enough to waste their disposable income on Green Day CD's and Lucky Brand jeans. I wanted to stop one of these parents or legal guardians shopping with their offspring and ask, "Shouldn't your kid be in school?" This is why Americans are so freaking stupid: we're letting our children run around the mall, irritating me, rather than out of sight, getting an education where they belong. Not that I want to tell these parents how to raise their kids, but seriously, they took their children out of school for a shopping spree — someone needs to play Dr. Spock and tell these parents how to raise their damn kids.

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I was at the mall because I can't walk around outside without a shirt now that it's winter. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I hate clothes shopping because I ain't got no style. I used to have style, but it was the style you'd find in the weekly K-Mart circular. I was particularly oblivious for the first decades of my life — the pre-Queer Eye decades — like, I didn't even realize that you could tell if it was a men's clothing store or a women's clothing store by whether the mannequins have tits.

But now, I want sex. From superficial women, apparently, so I did something new: I went from one store to the next trying to find clothes that would look good on me, rather than simply purchasing the first garment I see, whether it fits or not. I went to Old Navy, to Express for Men, J. Crew, and Abercrombie & Fitch — and they all sell the exact same freaking shirt. You know the one: it's a button-down collared shirt, pastel colors, with the vertical stripes. For some reason, it costs sixty bucks at the upper-middle class stores and only twenty-five at the lower-middle class store. If I'm paying more than thirty bucks for a shirt, it ought to give me superpowers or something. Otherwise, I'm just throwing my money away.

Okay, Abercrombie & Fitch. Some of us appreciate being able to go into a store without some extreme-sports-dude employee shoving a "lifestyle brand" in my face. "Hey man, can I help you find something, me and my frosted spiked hair and surfnoid necklace? You wanna hang out at Lizzie's tonight? I hear Dan's gonna be bringing some X." This is why I never had any style, folks. Anyway, I'd like you to meet Matt Ratliff and his abs. He's the newest Abercrombie spokes-adonis, and the Abercrombie store is wallpapered with this picture of him, blown up like a thousand times: . Um... okay, Abercrombie marketing geniuses, what's wrong with this ad? Let's think about it... you're trying to sell me Abercrombie apparrel, so... there aren't any fucking clothes in the goddamn photograph!!!! I'm not really an expert, but I can't imagine anybody being both so gay and so stupid they're thinking, "Today I buy an overpriced shirt that says 'Abercrombie' on it, tomorrow I get hot gay sex with Matt."

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By the way, I got that picture from the Abercrombie & Fitch website, here. I want to quote you some of the copy on Abercrombie's website, just so you can see for yourself how out of touch these morons are: "Browse through this season's images in the Gallery. Send a Postcard to your crush." Yeah, let me find a girl I like and send her an e-postcard of a guy who's like fifty times more attractive than I am. That's a wonderful idea. Assholes.