Chris Riemenschneider: My secret love affair with the MOA

I'm not so cool myself, but I know cool very well. I've interviewed Chuck D, Neil Young, Solomon Burke, Chrissie Hynde, Karen O and not one but two members of the Strokes. I've been to the boyhood homes of Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley and Muddy Waters. I even once got to watch Jack Nicholson act on a movie set and chatted with Johnny Depp about Texas punk rock.

I only mention how close I've come to cool because this is easily the most uncool column I've ever written. Yes, even more so than the one on a cappella man-band the Blenders.

Somewhere between the 84 times I took my 2-year-old daughter there last winter and our first cold-weather trip back last week, I realized the Mall of America really is not the horrid hellhole I always thought it was. In fact, I think I'm deep in the throes of a salacious love affair with it.

What's not to like about the MOA, some of you might ask. Well, pretty much the core concept of it disgusts me: Cram as many Indonesian-made-clothing chains and hokey gift stores as you can under one giant roof; add an inordinate number of restaurants with stuffed creatures for décor; throw in the new American Girl doll shop (am I the only one incredibly creeped out by those things?), and then surround it all with parking garages big enough to require the 50 United States to identify your whereabouts.

Seriously, as of two years ago I had been to the MOA fewer times than to the motor-vehicle bureau, with no regrets.

Out-of-town guests would want to go there, and I'd tell them to take the light rail. My nieces would want a Hannah Montana present from there, and I'd buy them a Beatles CD at the Electric Fetus instead.

But like nearly everything else I look down upon for reasons of morals and self-respect, my objections to the megamall flew out the window when I became a parent myself. Fears of exposing my daughter to corporate-America culture and Dora the Evil Explorer paled in comparison with worries over what our home and sanity would look like come mid-February if she were cooped up all winter.

Thus, my MOA affair started simply out of desperation, and from proximity. How ironic is it that I moved to south Minneapolis to avoid suburban mall culture, and I wound up living closer to the biggest mall in America than to any falafel place or rock club?

Also ironic: I'm usually the one who takes my daughter to the MOA, and not my wife, who at age 17 visited malls on all the days with U's in their name.

Suffice it to say I now know my way around the Nickelodeon Universe amusement park as well as I do First Avenue nightclub. I even know which day toddlers get unlimited rides for $9.95, which shops have the best/least-breakable display toys, and which level is best for going stroller-less.

(I'm not sharing this info for the obvious reason: I don't want to be around too many other kids besides mine.)

For the record, my daughter and I more often frequent museums, zoos and libraries on cold days. I also really like to let her go on wild tears through the $125 million Guthrie Theater, since Minneapolis helped build it but still gets beat out by Burger King and a dozen suburbs on providing decent indoor playgrounds for its winter-bound children.

I'd be remiss, though, to blame my big MOA turnaround solely on parenthood. Over the summer, when The Fam was out of town and I had a rare night off, guess where I went to relive my days of wild freedom?

At least I had a good excuse: Joe Mauer was still batting .895 or something, so it was clearly time to hit the sports shops to update my bargain-bin Pat Neshek T-shirt with a pricier No. 7. Also, I wanted to enjoy the mall's new beer-stocked VIP theater for "The Hangover" -- a movie my wife had sworn off, having seen one too many recent comedies with piggish male actors trying to score with gorgeous female counterparts. Too close to real life for her, I guess.

Throw in dinner at Famous Dave's (a regional chain, at least) and a solitary stroll around Level 3 (I find the air is clearer up there, and the ferns are downright tropical), and I had quite a fabulous night on the, uh ... town?

The real secret to appreciating the MOA, I've found, is not to avoid its gaudiest elements, but to seek them out. And then laugh your head off.

Some of the more farcical highlights of my recent visits include: Joan Rivers promoting a line of skin-care products at the QVC store (really?!); a homely guy camped out cross-legged on the floor across from Victoria's Secret, nibbling on a box of cheese curds and gazing inside intently (creepier than those dolls), and a woman telling off one of those pushy kiosk saleswomen for trying to sell her a hair-straightening device (the woman's hair was as linear as a Kansas highway). And both my daughter and I erupt whenever we see the guy walking around in that bright pink and vaguely phallic shrimp costume promoting Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

Oh, and those neon color-spewing dresses in the windows at Glitz crack me up every time, too. Seriously: Are those a joke, or are there still some things at the Mall of America I should be afraid of?

chrisr@startribune.com • 612-673-4658