Kate O’Toole: Retail space, the final frontier

My eyesight’s terrible, my sense of direction far worse. So a trip to Hades would be preferable to an extended schlep around an enclosed shopping centre. The welcome isn’t warm, the prices aren’t lower. The car parks are overcrowded and expensive: escaping their dingy, concrete warrens is always a source of relief. I never know which end is up, or where to find any bloody thing in these places. None of it seems remotely convenient. Even if they housed interesting or useful shops impossible to find elsewhere, which they don’t, I’d still be mystified by the appeal of the shopping centre.

Re-circulated air fills the lungs once inside these harshly gleaming temples of commerce. Add some muzak and the low-level needle of discomfort will swing towards a migraine at worst, to general confusion and nameless anxiety at best.

Retailers have long since used tricks of lighting, aroma and mood music to enhance our perceptions of their products and encourage us to buy more.

While this might work within the confines of individual shops, the concept seems to run amok in large shopping centres as outlets crash into each other incongrously.

The upshot seems to cause otherwise rational human beings to spend money on something, anything, quick, just to justify being there in the first place. This can be the only explanation behind the selling power of mirthless comedy animal slippers and silly decorations for mobile phones.

Being cattle-prodded into making a random impulse purchase isn’t quite the same as being lured gently into buying something you already knew you wanted.

Besides, what is there to want in an emporium where the generic shops are the same as their identical twins on the outside.

Emergency mission

The (hopefully) last time I entered the gobby maw of a Dublin city shopping centre was on an emergency mission before going to the gym.

After a frantic errand to score last-minute runners yielded nothing in my size anywhere on the high street, I was left with no option. I butched up and set my face to the demonic task.

Naturally, I became lost in retail space within minutes.

At least when one gets hopelessly lost in an American mall there are plenty of distractions and entertainments en route, the better to fool you into believing you’re more than just a consumer.

The exponential increase in online shopping has hit the malls where they hurt. Their response has been to create “lifestyle experiences” impossible to get from clicking a computer key.

Nowadays, you can get a Chinese neck massage in the mall while enjoying a view of people abseiling down the atrium, watch a weird band on the mezzanine, have a bit of craic with fellow customers and friendly staff, who are invariably chatty and helpful, eat free food samples, avoid mime artists, win a free wash and blow dry, get your shoes shined and go to the cinema.

Sometimes there’s even an ice rink or, the most amazing thing of all, a wedding chapel replete with a pastor in polyester.

Shopping for recognised name brands is said to be a quasi-spiritual experience in our heathen times. If getting hitched while you’re at it doesn’t provide the perfect marriage of God and Mammon, I don’t know what does.

Meanwhile, back in Dublin there were no such frills. There wasn’t even an information kiosk or a map. Not one person behind the tills in any of the shops had a clue where anything was if it didn’t relate to their stockrooms.

Another level

Feeling certain something sportswear-related must surely be hiding just another level up, like advancing through levels on a stupid video game, I tackled another flight of stairs.

Beads of sweat had started to form and it’s fair to say I wasn’t at my sunniest by the time I chanced upon a large interactive screen.

The idea of installing a machine that purports to be a store guide, instead of paying someone to interact with the customers properly, is no doubt driven by economics. Some would blame the recession. Some would call it a cheap move. I’d call it infuriating, especially when the screen refuses to do its one job, interact.

Despite much poking and jabbing, the high-tech helper remained dead as a dodo. Patience exhausted, I fled.

Near a back door, all the way downstairs, I found a screen that hadn’t flatlined. It responded to a bit of a slapping and lo, the precious secret of the runners was revealed.

Following instructions precisely, I climbed to the summit and discovered the screen may not have been flatlining, but was definitely on the ropes. The shop it directed me to sold nothing in the line of trainers.

It did, however, offer a large selection of Bob Marley T shirts, bongs, lighters, and other non sports-related paraphernalia. I'd scored at last, although not in the way I'd expected. Good job I'd given up on the idea of a healthy lifestyle by then.

Kate O’Toole is an actor and a recovering Facebook addict