The Rice Technique

‘I hate shopping malls.’

“I don’t think it’s urine,” I said quickly. “I think it’s water. I think my cat spilt a glass of water,” I lied.

I hate shopping malls. Whenever I have to go to one, which is seldom since I’ve discovered ASOS, I try to be quick about it. I spend exactly fourteen seconds picking a new shirt — usually not even trying it on because my size hasn’t changed since I was 16, and I feel self-conscious undressing half a metre away from strangers.

I also can’t stand the crowds, which make me feel like I am in that animated movie about a robot cleaning up the Earth and the perpetually obese humans who live on a space station, Skyping all day with each other whilst riding on a Segway, too lazy to walk anywhere.

I hate the nagging sales clerks, who work on commission and who you have to look in the eye and say, “No, thanks, I am just looking.”

I hate never finding a toilet. Since childhood, I’ve learned that the quickest way to lose any sense of dignity is to go Number Two in a shopping mall toilet. I don’t know about women’s restrooms — these past twenty-five years, apart from a stolen glance, I seldom visit one — but men’s look like a jungle. A man might look like a gentleman on the outside, but they transition into animals when they enter the doors marked W.C. with a stick figure man symbol. Pants are flying off, and the ten steps to the urinal are covered in vines with monkey sounds and penises flying around. The…