The Town Center Can Provide Entertainment

Instead of sitting at home and watching sports, I was roped into venturing to the St Johns Town Center on a Saturday to celebrate my old lady's birthday at The Cheesecake Factory. That was fine, and I don't have a lot to report about the experience. However, once we ventured into the rest of the Town (maybe Teen?) Center, things got cray-cray.

We slid over to Sephora for a birthday gift. But we weren't alone. I guess a lot of teen and preteen girls are interested in the right routines as provided by social media influencers, and Sephora seems to be ground central for purchases related to beautification. At least for girls at one local middle school. We saw four young teens in front of us in the 10-minute-long line who waved and greeted another group of three teens entering the store, only to greet another group of three a few minutes later, which means that there were at least nine girls from one middle school in Sephora together, totally unplanned. That seems like like an important coincidence that should be reported on Instagram.

Once out of Sephora, we headed over to Bath and Body Works for another birthday freebie. On the way, right on the main strip, we saw a group of teen boys that I initially mistook for a soccer team because they were all wearing black shirts. But then I noticed some of the shirts has brand-names and other decals, realizing that this group of boys had all independently worn black T-shirts. They must not have imagined that they looked like a group of preschoolers on a field trip to the zoo. I think a few had gold chains, a trend from my youth seemingly coming back, but they were very uniform in their group conformity to the black T-shirt trend. Unfortunately, I didn't think to whip out my camera in time, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Just imagine the one guy who showed up in his new red T-shirt to meet his friends, only to have his mom turn around to take him home when he saw the rest of his brahs ready for Town Center adventure. He probably had her stop at a store on the way back home to buy another black shirt in case of a repeat laundry-day problem.

While in Bath and Body Works, I had my normal nothing to do, but one funny event did occur. "Believer" by Imagine Dragons started to play over the speakers, but someone cut it off to play another song. The obviously gay dude at the door said, "Hey, that was a good song!" The obviously Trans person stocking 20 feet away quipped, "I like Imagine Dragons, too." The teen worker was like, "Imagine Dragons?" And I was left agreeing with the LGBTQ+ community on this one. But I didn't stick around to discuss music because I just can't hang out in B+BW too long, so I told the wifey I was going to see if the black-shirt-gang might make a return appearance outside, as I really wanted a photo to remember the moment.

While sitting outside, I saw a teen wearing a track suit with the tags still on it. Of course, my assumption was that he either stole it (which I'm sure most other shoppers assumed) or that he was participating in some kind of TikTok challenge. Maybe he bought it and was looking forward to a confrontation with security, ready to record the encounter and accuse them of ageism/racism. But he probably stole it. In taking the above photo, I also participated in someone else's story about weird people at the Town Center, since I snapped the photo just as two teen girls were passing by, and one of them looked at me like I was some kind of creep. She probably told the black shirt guys all about it later on, and at least one of those guys asked for a description of me so they could rough me up for being an old creeper. Then again, those guys were probably too busy at Dick's, shopping for more black T-shirts, just in case their current reserves start to get faded. 

So I guess you can have fun at the Town Center, especially if you are wanting to make fun of teens. I could have probably made fun of old ladies or bougie Ponte Vedra moms, too. Basically, make fun of everyone around you and the Town Center is at least bearable.