RandomCha

A dream last night.

It was an all-star cast which included Mary Tyler Moore, Nancy Walker, James Mason, and Robert Ryan. The premise: it’s four weeks before Christmas and the Grand Opening Day of a new, state-of-the-art shopping mall. One of the mall’s anchor stores is a supermarket. Next to the supermarket, on the other side of the indoor plaza, is a very expensive country club-style restaurant. Several people, rich grayhairs mostly, are dining on Beef Wellington and rare red wines. On another side of the plaza is the entrance to a department store, and next to that is a cozy little lunchcounter–a Woolworth’s type establishment where one can order soup and salad or just have a cup of coffee.

Also connected to the mall is a new church, a cathedral really, with a huge sanctuary. Done in a sort of English Tudor style. Consumerism and religion joined at the hip in other words.

So: it’s Grand Opening Day at the new mall. The place is packed. Christmas decorations are everywhere. Then an earthquake hits. Some concrete is knocked loose from the walls, there’s a little damage, but everyone is okay and the mall is not evacuated. Some shoppers hesitate; perhaps they should leave? But they don’t.

Except for James Mason, the aging rich playboy who has financed the project on a lark. He decides it’s best to go home. As he goes out the main entrance he says to his female companion, “Close call, that.” He runs into Robert Ryan, the hardnosed mall security manager who’s come to examine the situation.

Then, a few moments later, there’s another earthquake and this one is massive. Although there don’t seem to be any fatalities the exits are all blocked. Everyone is trapped. Mary Tyler Moore is a mother who’s at the mall doing some Christmas shopping with her son, a kid of 6 or 7. The kid remains calm and collected but Moore starts crying and wailing and generally panicking. Nancy Walker, playing an elderly maid who’s also a hopeless alcoholic spinster, comes over to comfort her. Through slurred words she encourages everyone to put a happy face on the situation. “If you laugh and smile you’ll feel better!” she insists. She leads all the trapped shoppers in a round of Christmas carols, which does indeed seem to boost everyone’s spirits.