It’s not often someone asks a question I don’t have an answer for. Usually I get asked the same things over and over, mainly involving a shoe size and the phrase “Do you have…”

Today I was taking out some trash, and while in the bowels of the mall I was confronted by a female mall patron. I guess she had wandered into one of the “Emergency Exit” corridors that offer shortcuts to the outside world and had no idea how to get out.

“Where’s outside?” she asked.

Me=no idea how to respond to that.

“Um, what?”

“Where’s outside?” she asked again.

Sort of understanding what she meant, but still not sure how macro or micro she was posing the query, I took two steps to my right and pointed around the corner to the world outside the mall. There were trees, a parking garage and a bit of light shining off the road.

“You mean like right there?” I asked.

She copied my walk of just a few seconds earlier, craning her neck to fill her eyes with what mine had just processed. Only she craned her neck upon reaching my side, not wanting I guess to venture too close to the “outside.”

She said that’s what she was looking for. Then she returned to her original spot, looking in the corner of two giant cement walls for a way out, ignoring the clear path she was looking at when standing right next to me.

After going all the way into the corner of the slabs, she posed her second question.

“How do I get out of here?”

I retraced my earlier steps, and even brought my pointing finger back out.

“Just walk around.”

The girl turned around, walking again towards the cement corner.

“No no, around the other way.”

She walked to the pointing spot, seeing freedom, but not quite understanding how to get there. Another second of processing and it finally clicked. She walked hurriedly up the ramp and across the sidewalk leading to her exit.

She’s probably still stuck in the parking garage. I should have checked.