Scenes from a mall

Much as I hate dealing with the hassles of big crowds and overpriced crap, I found it impossible to avoid going to the mall this weekend to do holiday shopping. But going to the mall during holiday season has its advantages, namely that stores have enough customers that I don't have to deal with bored or pushy clerks asking if I need help whenever I walk in a store. "No, thanks. I'd much rather wander around meekly and avoid human contact."

Whilst at the mall, I got the bright (and by "bright" I mean "laughably ill-conceived") idea to go into the requisite bookstore, thinking I might be able to pick up paperback copies of Hobbes' Leviathan and Machiavelli's The Prince. Major works of the European canon, sure to be on the shelves of any bookstore worth it's salt. Ahem.

Needless to say, there was no section labeled "political philosophy," or "philosophy," or anything else that would've seemed remotely apt. (Self-help, perhaps?) Rather than ask for help and earn a lot of blank stares, I retreated, my faith in humanity shaken yet again.

On the bright(?) side, I happened to notice the bookstore now has a larger section devoted to "military history" than to "U.S. history." Which strikes me as matter of truth in advertising, since I don't think the selection of titles has changed appreciably.