You’re sitting in your dorm room, having just finished class for the day. You’re bored.
 
There is nothing on T.V. because it’s three in the afternoon on a Tuesday and you have already seen today’s Judge Joe Brown. Sure, you could study or do homework, but that would be stupid. The roommate has already left for work and there is no one else around to keep you entertained.
 
You peek your head out into the hallway and look for signs of life. After wandering around aimlessly for several minutes, you find someone else in your predicament. Perhaps you find more than one person. There is still nothing to do.
 
“Hey, let’s go to the mall,” someone suggests. This is the best idea you have ever heard.
 
It’s not as warm outside as it was even a week ago, so you and your comrades head to your separate rooms to gather sweatshirts for the journey. As you put yours on, slight pangs of guilt hit you because you’re about to spend money you don’t have. You ignore these pangs.
 
The three of you rendezvous by the front door and step foot outside. Your journey has begun, and little do you know about the outrageous House of Oddities that awaits you.
 
 You begin to walk across campus, and someone states the obvious, “What happened to summer?” As you walk, you make fun of people who are still in class, are doing homework by the library, or have popped collars.
 
Almost at the edge of campus, you are stopped for the first time. Someone makes you buy brownies to save Darfur. You are in no way hungry for said brownie, but you buy it anyway because you can’t say no. That’s one dollar less that you can spend at Hollister.
 
Now all three of you are uncomfortably holding a guilt-brownie that is too big to fit in any pocket. You consider throwing it away but that would be wasteful. You are stuck carrying it the whole way.
 
Campus is now behind you, as you make your way onto York Road. You pass the Starbucks and one of your friends announces what her favorite drink there is. You’re not interested. Your hand is clammy from holding the brownie, and you see another trash can. No, that would be wasteful.
 
You see Pizan’s Pizza ahead of you, and all three of you have a crazy story to tell about Johnny Pizan. Your laughter is interrupted by several people sitting at the bus stop, demanding change from you for their bus fare. For a moment you wonder if they really do just need to get home, but you shake your head “no” and keep walking. You also wonder if bus drivers accept food bribes in the form of chocolate deserts, in lieu of bus fare.
 
As you walk past Jiffy Lube, there are several random people just sitting in their parking lot. They look at you as you pass, and you wonder what the hell they are doing there. You walk faster.
 
You pass Pizza Palace, Papa John’s, and Dunkin Donuts. You are starting to get hungry, brownie be damned. At this point you refuse to eat it simply on principal. Another bus stop is coming up, and you quickly engage your friends in deep conversation so that you can more easily ignore the requests for change. You also quicken your pace. Sure enough, the requests come, but you pretend not to hear them and keep walking.
 
The three of you cross the street together, heading towards Jerry’s Pizza and Subs. Up ahead, you can hear someone yelling. As you get closer, you can see a man in a dark green polo walking around animatedly, screaming “These are my streets! I live on the street man, these are mine!!! Don’t nobody tell me what to do!” People are crossing the street to avoid the yeller, and you follow suit.
 
Someone suggests stopping for food, and since you are at Subway, you might as well stop there. As you eat, you regale eachother with tales of your debaucherous weekends, wacky professors, and one night stands. You get up to leave, and as you are gathering your trash, the brownie gets conveniently left behind.
 
Back on the street, it sounds like you are in New Orleans’ French Quarter. The air is filled with a lively trumpet tune, occasionally accompanied by a loud throaty singing voice. You are enjoying the atmosphere, and as you walk past the sex shop, you are glad that you are out enjoying the day.
 
About a block ahead of you, there is a girl in a schoolgirl outfit holding a sign advertising the Halloween Superstore. She is smoking hot, but you are with your friends so you can’t hit on her. Or maybe you’re a girl yourself, I don’t know. Either way, you don’t stop to talk to her.
 
You make it the rest of the way to the mall relatively unbothered, not counting the two other requests for bus fare and the goth kids harassing you for money and cigarettes. You’ve learned that the best response is, “Sorry, I dont carry any cash on me.”
 
The mall is the watering hole in the desert; a bubble of normalcy in a madhouse. Once you have finished turning down offers for new cell phone plans, turning down pushy lotion salesmen, and running up your credit card bill, it’s time to go home. Time to do it all over again.

1. McDermott, September 17, 2007:

   Dude, best panhandling reponse is a proactive one. Before they can open their mouth, ask them for money first. OR, ask them for seomthing strange. Like an egg bagel or a rear view mirror for a ‘92 Honda Accord.

   Or, you could blackmail them. Warn them that if they don’t give you a dollar, you’re going to call the police and tell them that you saw them expose themselves to girls walking home from Towson Catholic.

2. Carson, September 18, 2007:

   This has nothing to do with your “walk to remember” or your “drive of shame”, although you have been doing a lot of aimless wandering by various means of transport lately. I’ve decided that you need a publicity stunt to really get this site running. Like that kid who got tazered at the John Kerry speech. Imagine if that were you (or Joe) and you were the only site with the video. Next thing you know, you’re the Perez Hilton of Towson….only gayer

3. Katya, September 19, 2007:

   This is hilarious and true. Some friends and I were on our way to get sushi and saw a group of kids and one girl had on black wings.

   And the person in front of the Halloween store was a guy in a costume with an inflatable ostrich.

   I’m from Baltimore City, but Towson is just as peculiar it seems.