At lunch today, it suddenly occurred to me how easy and enjoyable it might be to living in a shopping mall. Or if not a mall, perhaps a Target or Bon Marche. A department store has everything you might wish for in terms of furniture and bathroom facilities (though, granted, showering would be a bit more difficult).

I went back to the table and solicited everyone?s opinions about what the likely consequences would be if you were caught inside a store after they had closed. Would they call the police and take you in on some sort of trespassing charge, or if you were at all convincing that you had merely been trapped inside, would they merely shoo you out?

The general opinion was that they would just shoo you out. Then my interest was really piqued, as I am always keen to explore visions of free rent.

I like the concept of seeing how long you could live undetected in a commercial space. During business hours, having people milling around is the very essence of the business. And after hours, the entire place vacates pretty quickly. Further, in even a moderately large store there are just too many nooks and concealed spaces to hope to check them all.

Take the feeling that you had as a child hiding in the middle of the circular clothes rack, surrounded and isolated by warm fabrics while your mother and a million other shoppers were mere feet away, and extend that until you get caught, and that is what I am talking about.

Before you moved in, of course, you would have to case the joint. J~ averred that stores do not have motion detectors, and at best would have a few security cameras. So you would want to confirm the absence of motion detectors and know where the security cameras were. It would suck to find yourself trapped under a camera or motion detector and be stuck in your hiding place all night rather than able to wander around in your 30,000 sq ft home.

To move in, I imagine you would start by hiding under a bed or inside a rack of clothes. Presumably there would be a period after the store closed where they restock merchandise, so you would take that in consideration when choosing your hiding place.

And then later, janitorial staff would be wandering through at some point, so you could not, for instance, move into a comfortable bed to sleep out in the open like a normal person.

To cover yourself from a legal perspective, I think you would have to do a pantomime for the security cameras every night, pretending to be a poor normal consumer who was unfortunately locked in the store. You would go to the front door and pound to be let out (once you knew no one was around). You would go scampering around the store, pretending to call for help, and so forth. Once you established your alibi on the video tapes, you could settle in to seeing what was on the TVs (you could watch every channel at once!) or whatnot and be beyond reproach the next day. After all, you were stuck and just doing your best to pass the time.

You would need a cover story as well. Perhaps you nodded off while your girlfriend was shopping or something. And you would definitely need a current driver?s license, credit card, library card, etc, to complete the illusion of being a responsible Joe Citizen trapped in a comic inconvenience. Heck, you could probably even get away with railing at the store management for not having a night watchman or some way for the trapped customer to signal for release, and they might even end up apologizing to you.

I really do think I would be a great homeless person. I could panhandle during the day and move back into the Bon at night. I would give myself a sponge bath every day with paper towels in the restroom, and keep very presentable looking in Value Village clothes so that the Bon would not have any cause to throw me out the moment I stepped foot in the store. With no rent, no physical safety concerns, and my begging income only needing to cover thrift store clothing and food and personal hygiene products, how would I not be aces?

Of course, as near as I can tell, lacking a drug or alcohol dependency already puts me way ahead of the game, homelessness wise.