Briarwood Mall "Security"

For basic maintenance of our cars, we usually go to the Firestone place next to Briarwood Mall. I can drop the car off and walk around the mall or sit under a tree and read a book while I wait.

Last summer, I was waiting for our Saturn to be repaired. I was at the JCPenney end of the mall, and I could see they had lowered the car and were about to drive it out into the parking lot. I decided to wait there and watch. I had been there for about 5 minutes when a mall security truck drove up and stopped in front of me. The security guard got out and asked if everything was OK. I said “Sure”. He said that he had received some calls from concerned shoppers about me, and wondered if I could explain why I was standing there.

The sarcastic, cynical person in me, the one who is tired of all the phony-baloney security rules that have been imposed for no good reason on American citizens since 9/11, wanted to ask him for more details about the switchboards lighting up from “concerned shoppers” and just what exactly they were all concerned about. (“Oh my gosh, there’s this 40 year-old white guy who’s like, average height, with a farmer’s tan and he’s wearing brown shoes and a ten-dollar watch standing outside the mall and he has a book in his hands! I think the book may be about TERRORISM!”)

But I went along with it.

I told him I was waiting for my car to be done at Firestone, and he accepted this as a reasonable explanation, got back in his car, and drove off.

I have some observations and questions about mall “security”:
1) If I were a terrorist and I wanted to strike the women’s underwear department at JCPenney’s, all I would have to do is bring a book and claim to have my car at Firestone? That’s easy.
2) If he truly thought I was a danger to the mall, shouldn’t he have called the police?
3) If people were actually calling him to report problems, wouldn’t I have noticed someone grabbing their cellphone to make that call? If so, who would they have called? The number for mall security, or 911? If the former, where did they get the number, and, if the latter, wouldn’t the real police have shown up?

I'm not so much insulted that the security guy asked me what I was doing there. I imagine they have some guidelines that they have to follow that says people can't just loiter around the mall. Fine. I am insulted that he thought I was too stupid to know he was lying to me about the "phone calls". Does he think I believed him? A middle-aged guy with a book warrants multiple calls to mall security?

No one would have given me a second glance had I been INSIDE the mall, sitting in one of the many chairs, surrounded by stores and a steady stream of shoppers. Where a criminal mind who wanted to make a statement could do some real damage...