Eagles Landing Mall

Walking down the familiar cinderblock halls, I start second-guessing myself. Maybe I made a wrong turn. Maybe this isn't Elletsville, Indiana. Maybe this is first grade. Where's the recording studio/mastering house? Is it near the principle's office, or should I have turned left at the lav? Where the hell am I? Will I get detention for saying hell?
Eagles Landing Mall -- apparently named after an observation (not a place) -- might be Ellettsville's largest mall. Before 2003, it was an elementary school.
Today, it still feels and looks like a school. As rare evidence of the building's previous life, a lucky social studies book about Indiana History survives on a small end table in the hall. The sign welcoming customers to the mall is a dot matrix printed banner, scotch-taped to the wall (soooo third grade). The word processed directory indicates that the studio is in room (suite) 115.
As I walk down the fluorescent-lit hall, I peer into reformed classrooms where Hoosiers now buy ceramic dragons and take Karate lessons. Suite (room) 108 is shared by Affordable Computer Sales and Repair and Norma's Water Colors Gallery and Studio: a combination only marriage can explain. The used book store's hallway cart -- another survivor of the corporate takeover -- looks proudly comfortable outside roomsuite 117.
I observe my unusual surroundings, contemplating the edificial recycling. Probably built (or at least expanded) to meet the educational needs of the baby boom, the building stands today as a testament to the quirky resourcefulness of human beings, a practical response to changing times, a hallmark of Americana.
My mind starts to wander further, lost in the cream tile flooring and dull yellow paint. Has so much time passed since I walked down halls like this, dreaming of the day I could touch the walls on both sides of me with my fingertips? If it has, not much has changed. Thankfully, I can raise my arms and touch both walls, but I'm still a dorky kid, walking the halls of a school building bemused and confused. Also, no jerk is giving me a wedgie so powerful it rips the elastic from my underwear and.... Maybe I should just get to 115.