Kate McKean last wrote for The Toast about the malls of her childhood. When I was about eight or nine, I spent a lot of time in our finished basement playing Super Mario Bros. My father had a fancy stereo system that I was scared to touch, but I did know how to do one thing: turn on the 7" reel-to-reel tape player and start the five Beatles albums he'd recorded on the big…

All malls smell this same, which is mostly true. Auntie Annie’s pretzels and floor wax and perfume and air conditioning. All department stores are laid out the same way, which is actually true, and which gives me great comfort. Ladies shoes, handbags, jewelry, perfume, cosmetics, exit. Into the mall. I grew up in malls--or, rather, I grew up in many different places, but the malls were always the same. 
 1. Regency Square Mall,…