i was, like, a mall rat for a day

last weekend i did something i haven't done in about 15 years. I sat in a mall food court for about 4 hours checking out teenagers. oh, yes, that's what my massive business school dollars are going towards.

before you get all weirded out, no, i wasn't there to hook up with some dude so i can wear his varsity jacket. i was there with my market research group for some work we're doing for a friend who wants to open up an upscale salon targeted at "tween" girls.

Our mission - yes, we chose to accept it - was to get at least 50 "tweens" (girls age 10-16) to fill out a survey for a conjoint analysis we were conducting about how much they were willing to spend on things like manicures, pedicures etc. Before you start to yawn, here are a few things that made it interesting:

• two of my team members where dudes, so they were really concerned about getting arrested for looking like they were hitting on teenage girls. i thought that was kind of funny, esp since one of them is married with a kid due next month, so i made one of them come with me on our first "hit" of girls. she totally dissed him. sorry, max. maybe it was the wool-sweater-over-the-collared-shirt professor look. (p.s. our professor said he had bail money set aside for that weekend...just in case)
• according to research we found, these girls spend about $50-$100 a week on entertainment! that's more than i got in a month's allowance when i was growing up. to think - all the keds and colored socks i could have bought...
• our biggest concern was the mall cop - the man (or woman) who wears a ranger hat and dresses like a cop, patroling the mall for hoodlums like us (we're technically not allowed to administer surveys in a mall without permission). but we had a strategy down, man. no clipboards to flag us. identify a homebase table. order fries or a drink every hour or so to look like we wanted to just "hang" as kids these days call it. wear cool shirts that say "try me" or "bad ass" to fit in with the cool kids. give out free colorful nail files (which ended up looking like sharp weapons, but hey, whatever.)

Anyway, four hours and 54 surveys later (we even got a guy to fill one out!), mission accomplished! Must have been that "bad ass" shirt i wore.

To further prolong the adventure, on the way home, Max says "John, have you ever had a flat tire?" No exaggeration, 30 seconds later, John's tire blows out on the freeway, the tire rolls down the side of the hill and we're stuck on the shoulder. Strike two for Max today! I also love it when i'm in Chicago at 19 degree temperatures when this kind of stuff happens. it's pretty fun. at least i was looking hip with my "bad ass" shirt.