CATCHING FIRE: at the mall?!!

I was really headed to one of those “see it and the universe will make it happen” kinda group meetings when I realized I was driving right past the Cherry Hill Mall–so of course, I just went to the mall.

Imagine my surprise when I walked in and heard screaming! There was something going on in the middle of the mall, the very spot where Santa will soon sit on his throne and try not to make babies cry. What could it be?

It was this:

Can’t tell what’s going on? Nope, neither could I, because this is what everything looks like these days. Someone’s up on that stage, you know it, but how can you see when everyone–EVERYONE–is holding up a camera or cell phone or ipad?

Looking around, I see that there are vendors selling everything Hunger Games-y and I realize that the new movie, Catching Fire, is about to be released. Ah, so that’s what they’re screaming about.

I don’t have the gold bracelet necessary to get past any of the many, many security men and women guarding the rails, so I stand on tiptoe too to try to get a pic for my friends who will care about this. That’s when a woman sitting next to me–waiting, I supposed, for one or more of those teenage girls inside–offered me a gold bracelet and before I knew it, I, too, was an insider. Yippee!

Once I got closer, I was able to snap a pic of people I do not know but who are in the movie. It wasn’t the big three up there on that stage on a sunny November morning in Cherry Hill–I don’t think I wouldn’t gotten into the parking lot if it had been–but still, the actors onstage elicited many new hoots and hollers as they “arrived” (from behind the magic screen?).

So this is what is happening in America this month. The second installment of The Hunger Games trilogy is coming to a theater near you, and our teenagers–and countless kids and adults, too–can’t wait. I texted a friend who’s a huge fan about the happenings in the mall, and she was destroyed that she was missing this event. Yet here I was, snapping pics and moving on to shop for things I neither need nor can afford. That, too, is what happens in America–every day.

Even the vendors were star-gazing:

I bought some earrings for my niece, and a key chain with Jennifer Lawrence’s pic on it for my much-too-old-to-have-a-crush-on-her brother. Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving? Oh good gravy, I’m one of them now.

“Catching Fire” opens November 22. I won’t be there (the first one was enough for me), but I know a whole bunch of people who will. Enjoy–but remember: it’s only a game. Real people don’t kill each other for sport.

It had to be said 😥