The Mall: Luxury prison living

While visiting Critter’s family in Massachusetts last week, we saw a story in the Boston Globe about a new batch o’ condos whose sole selling point is that they’re located right above a mall.  (Consumerist.com also posted it with its usual snarkniess.)  For the paltry sum of $1.6 million (and your mortal soul), you can own one of these luxury boxes and walk down to all your favorite stores without even stepping outside.  Why, it’s a steal!

“You just don’t see malls like this,” said Kellie DuGally, 37, owner of an online sales company in Hudson, who plans to convert one of the penthouse’s three bedrooms into a closet for her clothing and shoes. “It’s like you’re in a luxurious hotel.”

“We’re not about roughing it,” said Michael DuGally, 39, a one-time Newt Gingrich aide who now owns a Hudson-based furniture company that produces office cubicles.

These are probably typical of the mall-condo buyers out there:  snotty rich twats with more money than they know what to do with, shunning the outside world in favor of the calm, controlled environment of The Mall, a.k.a. the temple of American culture.  I hope their close proximity to JC Penney and the Cheesecake Factory brings the fulfillment they’re so obviously lacking.  Oh, and his comment about “not roughing it” is priceless!  This guy wouldn’t know rough if a cat jumped up and licked him on the ass.

And yet, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of people like this locked away in Mall Hell.  These are people who live and breathe shopping and the mall culture; a self-contained universe which discourages actually leaving the premises is probably the perfect way to keep them away from those of us who detest the malls.  So I say buy-buy-buy!  It’s only money, right?