Look at the Falls: The Mystery of the Multiplying Malls
The Mystery of the Spooky Empty Space
You see, most cities have one big mall. Maybe two. Wichita Falls seems to operate on the economic principle of “If you build it, they will… eventually drive by and wonder why you didn’t build it slightly closer to a Whataburger.”
I went to what I shall call “The Primary Mall.” It was glorious. Two stories of shiny, slightly echoing space. I walked past a store selling highly specialized socks and another selling things you use once and forget about. And then I hit it: **THE VAST, CHILLING EMPTINESS.**
It’s not truly empty. It’s filled with the ghosts of retail chains past. Every third storefront is a former something-or-other, now sealed behind a black plastic curtain. But here’s the key observation: the remaining, successful stores are selling one of three things:
- Cowboy Boots (mandatory, even if you’re a tax attorney from New Jersey).
- Inexplicably Complex Vaping Equipment.
- Chicken, served in ways God probably never intended.
And yet, a few blocks away, there’s an outdoor shopping center! And a few blocks from *that*, a strip mall! The only explanation I can come up with is that the City Planners of Wichita Falls are actually just one extremely dedicated teenager who thinks that the ultimate measure of success is being able to buy a churro at four different locations within a seven-minute drive.
Driving the Circle of Economic Wonder
Then there’s the traffic. Ah, the traffic! It’s not the quantity of cars that gets you; it’s the **LOGIC.** Everyone is driving slowly, cautiously, reverently, because they are ALL heading to a place to buy a tiny decorative ceramic duck. The streets are a perfect, slow-motion ballet of SUV drivers desperately trying to figure out which access road leads to the parking lot that will allow them to be closest to the store selling the 50-cent key chain. This is known, in academic circles, as the Texan Retail-Proximity Paradox.
My advice, and I offer this only after extensive research involving one diet soda and a lot of confused staring: Embrace the retail chaos. Stop asking WHY there are so many places to purchase a scented bath bomb. Just accept it as a mystical, local phenomenon, like The New York Times calling it The Falls when there aren’t actually any (unless you count the small, suspiciously modern dam built mostly to confuse out-of-town columnists).
The spirit of Wichita Falls isn’t found in a grand monument; it’s found in the fact that you can buy a replacement part for your pickup truck, a $4 artisanal coffee, and a ten-gallon hat all within 90 seconds of each other. And that, my friends, is why America is the greatest country in the world. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I hear a rumor that a *NEW* Taco Bell is opening up.
