I was walking in the Mall of America with a friend the other day when I discovered a rift in time and space somewhere between Lane Bryant and Bow-Wow-Meow. It was as if someone had built several house-like facade stores to form a house-like facade store neighborhood. I stood before the anomaly for a moment, puzzled as to why, if there were a God, he/she/it would allow such an atrocity to happen.

Despite my nausea, I managed to find the strength to make my way into the first shop, a purveyor of loud tropical kitsch named “Tommy Bahama.” For a moment I found myself wondering, “Who is this Tommy Bahama? Why has he enslaved retired people to a life of shamefully poor taste?”

Already ashamed of what my curiosity had dragged me into, I walked to the store next door only to discover something all too familiar. It was Hollister, but not California. It was Gap, but less boring. It was Ruehl, in all of is craptacular splendor. After escaping its dreary confines, I figured there couldn’t possibly be anything worse lurking inside my final destination, Gilly Hicks. I was terribly wrong.

The creepiest of all, this women’s underwear store looked more like a Miami coke house than a place for Oven-Baked Ashley to purchase her gear. I walked to the back of the store, came full circle around it, got lost in a stairwell because the place is so fucking dark and confusing and— after some effort —made it to the entrance again. I saw nobody working there, nobody shopping there. At that very moment, I knew that I had found the American epicenter of mindlessness. Move over Arkansas, there’s a new kid in town.

I used to just shake my head in disgust and continue on my way when I’d encountered spectacles like these. However, on that day something within me completely snapped. It dawned on me that this was more than just a brand name. This was a war, a cultural disease — and the epidemic was winning.

After some research, I found out that Gilly Hicks and Ruehl were owned and formulated by none other than Abercrombie & Fitch, the same company that runs its respective brand name and Hollister. No Surprise there, but what frustrates me most is the blatant calculation behind this company’s retail brand names.

The sense of smell is the strongest tied to memory, correct? You can’t walk by an A&F Co. owned retail store without being exposed to the blast of stench that emanates from within. It often anticipates your arrival and follows you for several stores down before it disappears. It’s even possible to smell these stores from the floor below without ever even setting eyes on them, a familiar scent that you can’t quite put your finger on. This goes beyond simple marketing tactics. A&F Co. is utilizing Pavlovian mental conditioning. You are being trained to recognize a specific color scheme, a physical concept, a geographical concept, and even a scent. Abercrombie & Fitch wants your soul. A consumer expects companies to utilize marketing techniques to target them, but A&F Co. does everything to the extreme with no shame or tact.

I refuse to regard this as acceptable corporate decorum and urge you, fellow consumers, to do the same. If these types of retail stores continue to grow, they will multiply into the hundreds as corporations desperately latch on to any possible road to profit. Soon the mall will become some sort of freakish theme world, with so many different storefronts that you’ll even forget where you are. All you’ll have left are your few remaining shreds of identity and an inconsolable remorse for buying all of those polos.