THE Barely-Humans have spent days in their darkened den, huddled before
flickering images of renowned battles. The family members have eaten collateral
dinosaur descendants till they are sick of the sight of them, and they鈥檝e drunk
infusions of alkaloid plant poisons, flavoured by mammary secretions from huge
ruminants. They鈥檝e even kept the nerve cells firing strongly enough into the
muscles around the corners of their mouths that their pallid skin curls upwards,
giving the impression they actually enjoy this ritualistic retreat with members
of their mate鈥檚 ancestral lineage. But if they have to endure it for another
minute THEY WILL SCREAM!
So they decide to go to the mall.
Marching across the vast wind-swept parking area, the family must proceed
with caution. There鈥檚 little risk from the more aged specimens of their species.
They鈥檙e easy to spot because the protein strands dangling from their heads have
hollowed out, leaving a translucent column of air inside, creating what we know
as grey hair. But the real danger comes from the strangely morphing intermediate
life forms called teenage males.
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A car jolts forward, and a race ensues between brain cell firings within the
parents鈥� craniums and the roaring movement of a 1500-kilogram wheeled chunk of
metal in the outside world. The family and the car stop just in time, but what
happens next depends on the origins of the protagonists. For example, when brave
social psychologists 鈥渁ccidentally鈥� walked into students from the southern
states of the US, uniformly high surges of cortisol and other anger-related
hormones pulsed through the students鈥� veins. By contrast, northerners showed
little response.
Back in the shadow of the mall, the car鈥檚 occupants show distinctly southern
tendencies. Fused silica wrappings are wound down, and words of ancient
Anglo-Saxon origin shoot into the air as the driver and his passengers transform
their thoracic cavities into bellow-like pumps, firing information-dense
compression waves through the frigid air. Blood surges into the speakers鈥�
hands鈥攚hich would be ideal for wielding weapons. The increased pallor of
the apologising dad is a sign that blood has been sensibly removed from his
skin, so lessening the consequences of being on the losing side of an impromptu
battle.
Little nods
The snarling teen roars off. The family, now safely calling out an
Anglo-Saxon verb phrase of its own to assuage hurt dignity, huddles together to
discuss shopping strategy. A close examination would show a strange spectacle at
this point, for even in the busiest conversation humans stay utterly still and
silent about 35 per cent of the time. The patterns of conversation are also odd,
with many people repeating themselves until someone else repeats the gist back
to them.
Little head nods from listeners make most people speak faster, but if someone
stands with arms crossed, most speakers slow down. The whole process usually
begins with the speaker-to-be glancing away or down for an instant, as we seem
to need this moment to plan our initial phrase. It is exquisitely difficult to
start talking when looking directly at someone.
The 10-year-old son is bored, and reaches for a flimsy plastic storage device
that contains a mixture of pigs鈥� fat, rubber, petroleum jelly (best known as
Vaseline) and children鈥檚 glue. His best friend looks over with interest and, as
10-year-olds are nothing if not generous, they now share this pinnacle of the
formulation chemist鈥檚 art: a slab of chewing gum.
Most substances that you can put in your mouth fit into one of two
categories. Either they compress and break up to become a mush-like slurry that
you can swallow鈥攁pples and steak fall into this category鈥攐r they
don鈥檛 compress, and you would be strongly advised not to try chewing them. These
are definitely non-food items, such as rocks and twigs. It鈥檚 very hard to find
items that fall in between, both destructible yet not terminally compressible.
But the engineers of modern gum have managed it.
The solution used by some manufacturers is to pour substances that are soft
enough for chewing鈥攕uch as the petroleum jelly and animal fats鈥攊nto
a tough rubber matrix, and manipulate the result so that no one call tell what鈥檚
inside. Along with the children鈥檚 glue, there can also be dollops of soap and
polyethylene. As the boys chew this delicious fare, a little fat and petroleum
jelly ooze out. Their young livers will be detoxifying these rare juices in the
hours to come.
The family enters the mall, speeding up at the tiled entrance, then slowing a
little further on, where the carpets start鈥攋ust as the designers intended.
In the cold weather there is no question where they will stop first. Cold air
makes your blood volume slowly decrease, which sends more liquid from the blood
into the kidneys and ultimately the bladder. Mall toilets are always busy at the
start of a cold snap.
In the ladies, mum checks her hair afterwards in front of the mirror. Events
here have been observed by brutally unromantic researchers armed with
stopwatches. If someone鈥檚 on a first or early date, she鈥檚 likely to spend about
58 seconds preening herself. But if she is married, the average time plummets to
9.8 seconds.
It鈥檚 the teenage daughter, who鈥檒l be meeting some friends later, who takes
her time. She daubs soil clays as foundation powder on her face and checks the
dead cow skin and ground up hooves in the polish on her fingertips. Then, of
course, she applies the wax, castor oil and hydrogenated vegetable oils we call
lipstick. The mother is impatient, but the daughter won鈥檛 be rushed. Cheaper
brands of lipstick get their glisten from mere factory chemicals. But more
expensive brands鈥攁s a close, mouth-puckering peer in the mirror
confirms鈥攇et a finer lustre from authentic scales, scraped from
eviscerated fish.
The family reassembles and, upon hearing a sudden chime, obediently marches
into a metal box. It doesn鈥檛 move, but no one minds. Stores can鈥檛 put in enough
lifts for busy weekends without wasting valuable floor space, but they need to
keep their impatient customers happy. One solution which stops grumbling is to
hang mirrors either side of the lifts, but the cheapest option is simply to let
people march into the lift鈥攅ven if they then have to wait just as long as
they would have outside.
Finally, hauled up by the precarious cables, they reach the food court,
unconsciously sitting where they鈥檙e intended. Food court managers can manipulate
us because we have a reflex鈥攌nown by planners as the moth
effect鈥攖hat leads us to settle in seats that are in a dimmed area, but
which face direct light. If the lighting pattern is changed, the curious
spectacle ensues of patrons shifting to face what鈥檚 now the brightest light.
The boys reach for burgers, which seem to have authentic 鈥渃harred鈥� lines on
them, but which are actually where lines of caramel additions have darkened. The
bun that holds their feast together gets even more ingenious help. A little
chalk goes in to make it white, and then there鈥檚 partially dehydrated gypsum,
which stops it disintegrating when wet from the dripping burger. It鈥檚 an effect
that children worldwide can testify to, because gypsum was once mined under the
Montmartre district in northern Paris and is still popularly known as plaster of
Paris.
The teenage daughter looks longingly at the food; she鈥檚 likely to be
releasing insulin now, just from eyeing the food, and that lowers her blood
glucose making her still hungrier. She and her mother sigh, acknowledging that
it鈥檒l have to be salad for them again. Dispiritedly, distractedly, they crunch
away multi-billions of intricate chlorophyll light antennae, then propel each
vegetable fragment to the back of their throats for the long descent.
It鈥檚 hard to linger here, for seats are often intentionally slippery and
background music can be pumped out at 100 beats a minute to further speed
consumers鈥� exits. But the family calmly and rationally discusses what to do
next. The boys opt for a movie, while the teen girl is quite definite that
yes she is old enough to meet her friends on her own.
The parents reluctantly capitulate. But they needn鈥檛 worry. Eldest children
can usually be counted on to be cautious. In the US, the eldest girl in a family
of three will first have sex at the average age of 18. It鈥檚 younger siblings who
start much earlier鈥攁t 16 or so. The effect of sibling position on
obedience is pervasive: much of the resistance to special relativity and
continental drift came from scientists who鈥檇 been the eldest in their families,
too.
Mum heads to a favoured boutique for some serious shopping. Very little of
what ensues is up to her. She almost certainly veers to the right, which is so
powerful a reflex that stores often pay higher rents for the honour of being
there, and even within stores the most expensive items are stacked on that side.
Walking speed is also easily controlled: she goes faster in narrow aisles,
slower in wide ones. The 鈥渃rawler lanes鈥� are again home to the most profit-laden
items and the most valuable of all live on eye-level shelves.
When Mum finally finds the most attractive jeans she has a distressing
struggle to get them on. This isn鈥檛 her fault though, as most people enlarge a
bit in the autumn and winter, usually by 2 kilograms or more. This effect is so
regular that airlines take it into account when estimating the fuel they need
for flights.
But where鈥檚 Dad? He鈥檚 enjoying the rarest of all blisses for an adult over
Christmas. It doesn鈥檛 matter that the thin slabs of reconstituted wood fragments
he鈥檚 reading carry ridiculously stale news, as nothing much happens in this
week. It doesn鈥檛 even matter that the mash of plant poisons he鈥檚 ordered is
tasteless and rapidly cooling; or that he鈥檚 being hit by floating saliva
spatters which the cheapskate mall manager keeps recycling through the
ventilation ducts鈥攖he better to save on heating costs. Who cares about all
that?
He raises his coffee cup and happily takes a sip. The mall has performed its
ultimate function. He is, at last, all on his own.