Yesterday I visited the Desolation of Smaug, or rather King of Prussia Mall. I call it that because the outside is a rather featureless man-made cave of large taupe boxes surrounded by pavement (and without windows), and inside it is full of glitter, avarice, and greed. It’s a lovely Desolation, don’t get me wrong, and I enjoy visiting it, especially since Smaug is just capitalism and if I don’t spend money I haven’t got, he can’t get me.

King of Prussia is one of those malls that survived the slump, because it’s enormous and has something for everyone, including garish t-shirt shops and gourmet popcorn stores, but also including things like Ferragamo and Louis Vuitton. Also there is a storefront with Teslas, and another with Porsches. And an Apple Store. Very shiny.

I am not a proper consumer, of course; I live on my savings and Social Security and don’t have a car. But I took the bus to the mall, a good hour trip, because I needed to buy a new mattress and I am not going to buy something like that if I haven’t seen it, felt it, and lain on it. I made a similar trip earlier this year to get my recliner, and that certainly worked out well. My cat approves of the recliner and is lying in it now, but he lets me sit in it from time to time.

I had done some research and found that the mattress company Casper has a retail store in the King of Prussia Plaza. I wanted to see what their products were like, because I have heard they are decent. I wasn’t going to buy another mattress at the furniture store where I got our old ones, because that place is cheesy yet expensive, and staffed by people who work on commission and aren’t enjoying themselves.

I ventured into the nice, clean, silent mattress store, and a young man who was browsing on his laptop amiably ignored me until I had looked around a bit. Unlike the employees of the tiresome furniture store where I bought my previous mattresses, he appeared to be perfectly content and not particularly predatory as far as sales. When I was ready to talk, he went into his patter amiably, sold me the cheapest mattress at my request plus a mattress cover that I do not need, and told me I would be getting it later this week. It was on sale, and I had cash rewards on my Apple Card, which I applied to the purchase, so I don’t feel as bad as I would otherwise.

These mattresses come packed like jacks-in-the-box into a tight carton and are delivered by a long-suffering UPS driver. The young man asked me how I would set it up, and I said I had a son-in-law. I did not tell him what I will really do, which is slide the box up the stairs the way I’ve slid all my other furniture. You can do a lot with an inclined plane, and stairs are basically an inclined plane with bumps. If you angle things right, you can just shove anything flat along the edges of the stairs. Don’t tell anyone I do that.

Then I treated myself to a 45-minute massage in a mechanical chair, because it was rainy out and everything you have heard about joints and barometric pressure is real. That group of chairs is one of my regular stops when I go out there. I sit and look at the “brow bar” and consider getting my eyebrows tinted, I read on my phone, and I watch all the families wander past in their nice chain store clothing, carrying many bags. The children are generally well behaved, perhaps because they are there with their parents and someone is buying them nice things. Even the small groups of teenagers are well behaved.

Some of the department stores are gone now, because COVID and online purchasing drove a lot of those out of business. There used to be two Macy’s stores, a Penney’s, a Sears, and a Lord & Taylor, but now there’s only one Macy’s, plus the Bloomingdales and the Nordstrom.

The Lord & Taylor space got replaced by something called a Netflix House, which doesn’t appear to have any customers on a Sunday afternoon. They appear to be designed for people to visit them in jolly groups of friends. I have not adjusted sufficiently with the times to be interested in going into one of these dark, gloomy places like Netflix House that have popped into large stores and resemble casinos in their claustrophobic decor. I prefer my mini golf and my arcades at the beach, honestly, where the darkness is leavened by sun and sea. Also, though I like hanging out with friends, I usually do that one person at a time and over coffee.

But I did go to LL Bean for another tote bag, because I have worn my old one out (yes, it’s possible, especially if you wash it in the washer when it gets grubby and use bleach, which I do not recommend), and I went to the LEGO store for a present for my grandson. The LEGO store is also an experience.

There’s a food court in the cheaper end of the Plaza, with the dividing line just past LL Bean, and you can feel the atmosphere change the moment you cross that invisible line. Suddenly it’s more like the malls that died. A Primark looms at the end, full of flimsy polyester and garish colors. The food court is missing tables and the floor is beat up, more like the King of Prussia Plaza of the olden days. I had a nice 5 Guys burger and enjoyed the greasy ambience.

Then I strolled down the long alley between the Plaza and the Court, which is an entirely different atmosphere. Luxury goods are displayed in pristine windows there, and tended by languid clerks in elegant outfits who are bored out of their minds because no one is shopping there, just parading past. I sometimes wonder if those stores are just there to make people yearn, and then to go buy something much more serviceable and a hell of a lot cheaper in the Macy’s at the end of the alley.

I have gone to King of Prussia most of my life (it opened when I was 12), but unlike other childhood destinations such as Longwood Gardens, I feel very little nostalgia when I’m there. I sometimes miss Woolworth’s, mind you, and Penney’s and Sears both had their utility, but the ladies room is still in the same place, and I know where to get a burger and fries. And now you can get a mattress there.

But I once set a scene in a book in a mall because the book was about the afterlife, and there is nothing more like a languid Elysian Fields than a nice glossy soulless mall.

I went out into the chilly rain and sat in a bus shelter for 15 minutes, along with a whole bunch of young people who worked in the mall and were done with their shifts, and I had a lovely bus ride home in a half empty bus that travels through landscapes that definitely do not glitter, but which I also find alluring, nonetheless.