Damien Arnold absolutely despises shopping malls, and it’s all because of something that happened when he was quite young. When Damien was 9 he and his family took a trip to the local mall in Michigan, and at the time Damien was thrilled at the idea. After spending an hour or so browsing the toy store, his mother told him she was going to walk to another store, and for him to stay put. Back then kids weren’t too good to be left alone in a huge shopping mall. Damien continued to wander the toy store until he looked out across the mall’s foyer, and saw a clown handing out balloons, so he made his way toward that. When he got closer though, he could tell it wasn’t a real clown, but a cardboard cutout of a clown holding balloons. He turned around, but couldn’t see the toy store anymore. Next Damien noticed a mall security guard take notice of him, and so he started to run away, but the guard started chasing him. Meanwhile, in the clothing store next door to the cardboard clown, Damien’s mother was flipping through racks of clothes when she saw her baby boy run by, followed by a mall security guard in full pursuit. She took off running after the both of them as well. When she came around a corner she realized she had lost them, so she headed to the security office. The two guards there said they hadn’t seen Damien, and they were the only two working that day, but she didn’t recognize either. One of the guards went with her to the parking lot to try and spot Damien and whoever it was who grabbed him. They found a man closing up the back of a van, and immediately she knew it was the guy who was chasing her son. The security guard notified his partner to call 911, while Damien’s mother approached the vehicle. As the man got into the driver’s seat, she pulled the backdoor open and pulled Damien out the back. The man chased them back toward the mall, but the police arrived in time to intervene. To this day Damien is too terrified to be at the mall alone.
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