This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Like many teens in the 80s, my first job was at the mall. I was 14. I lied about my age.

I was a bus boy in an Applebee style restaurant that no longer exists. On Saturdays I often worked three shifts in row, so I witnessed the entire

circadian rhythm of the mall. At 8 o'clock, I'd clean windows as the senior citizens

in track suits powered through the empty halls, passing

by shops with the cage doors still rolled down.

By midday, the families took over, and my usual job of clearing glasses and plates involved

cleaning up piles of food spilled on the floor. By evening the teens

arrived they couldn't afford the restaurant but I could see them in

packs congregating by the fountain, always ready with an unkind word for some act of

cruelty. The mall felt terrible. I hated it. But despite this, on days

when I wasn't working, I had my mom drop me off at the mall.

Kids in small towns and suburbs play the hand they're dealt and being able to walk around

on your own, maybe buying a cassette tape of the Smith's live album

at Sam Goody is the best that life has to offer. I was not a very cool teen.

I was not a very nerdy teen. This is cool adult in friend of the show Alexander Lang.

I feel like there are a lot of teenage mall scenarios that I did not participate in.

Like I did not like meet my first bow at the mall. I did not like stroll around with shopping

bags showing off at the mall. None of that.

But no teen in the 80s could completely avoid the gravitational pull of the mall.

Alexandra is the author of a new book called Meet Me By the Fountain.

I think part of the whole argument of this book is really that people are social creatures

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