Too Much of a Good Thing

I think the phrase "too much of a good thing" adequately sums up the shopping and dining choices in south Charlotte. For instance, we live across the street from this shopping center. In some ways, this is very convenient. With something like 100 stores in there, you could pretty much never shop anywhere else. (I mean, if there were some sort of natural catastrophe and you couldn't shop anywhere else...)

But when we first moved here, it was all very confusing. There's so many stores over there and so many nooks and crannies that I used to see a store and then forget where I'd seen it or if indeed I'd seen it in there at all? Maybe I saw it someplace else... (Yes, looking at the directory I linked above would have been a good idea... no, I never did).

I must admit, it is still pretty confusing to me. Today for instance I was over there picking up some groceries at lunch time and I thought I'd try takeout from the new Noodle & Co. restaurant I'd seen in there, and it look me like 10 minutes of aimless driving and one irate soccer mom honking at me before I actually found it again (even though most of the restaurants are clustered in the same area). I have a particularly awful sense of direction coupled with very poor parking-lot-driving ability, so despite the fact that I am in this shopping center almost every day for one thing or another (usually groceries or coffee) I still have not mastered it (except for the goceries and coffee part).

Maybe in another year I'll have it figured out...