Good-Buy to Good Cheer at the Mall

After wrestling a baby stroller through the masses at South Coast Plaza for two hours Sunday, Brenda Hirko of Santa Ana angrily decided to call it quits.

Hirko, 24, said she was tired of other shoppers refusing to make room as she tried to maneuver the stroller with her 7-month-old son, Travis. “It’s supposed to be the season to be jolly, but everybody’s mad and everything,” Hirko huffed as she sat, defeated, on a bench. “I’m going to finish up my shopping this next week.”

Another woman, also put out with what she termed the lack of Christmas spirit, reclined on a bench outside the mall as her fiance went inside to pick up the Christmas present he had ordered for her.

“You wanna know the truth?” she said, frowning. “It’s been a pain. . . . I’ve been sittin’ here for 15 minutes, and I’ve seen people fighting over parking spaces. You can see the frustration on their faces.”

Coming Out Scowling

Before she could give her name, her fiance strode out of the mall scowling.

“Uh-oh, he doesn’t look happy,” she muttered, as he took her by the arm and advised the questioner to get lost.

“I hate people like that,” he complained as the couple hurried into the parking lot where cars were lined up five and six deep waiting for someone to pull out.

Not everyone was in such a sour mood Sunday at Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza--Southern California’s largest mall in terms of revenues--on the last weekend before Christmas. But the large crowds and frenetic pace of last-minute shopping contributed to some short tempers.

“All in all, people have been pretty nice, but there have been a few who have not been nice at all,” said David Wainwright, a salesman at the Jarman shoe store.

Marc Sarver, a manager of a valet service outside Bullock’s, said shoppers were in a better mood Sunday than Saturday--when rain caused delays in retrieval of cars.

The valet service, the busiest of three at South Coast Plaza, parked 600 cars Saturday and was approaching that number by late Sunday afternoon, valet co-manager Jeanna Smith said.

“It’s crazy here,” marveled Stephanie Peck, 17, as she waited with her mother for their ride home.

Elaine Peck had needed only a small plastic pail to just about finish Christmas shopping. Peck, 53, of Huntington Beach, said she needed the pail to put her Christmas cookies in. But she and her daughter still had to wait in line for 30 minutes to make that purchase.

Craig Johnson, 24, a civil engineer from Costa Mesa, was beginning to look desperate late Sunday after he had been in six stores looking for a gift for his wife. He planned to look in even more.

“She’s just real particular about what she wants,” Johnson said, sighing as he waited with others for a shuttle bus to take them from the Crystal Court section of South Coast Plaza back to the main mall.

On that shuttle, Metta Arlow of Belfast, Northern Island, happily confided to other riders that she was celebrating her 85th birthday.

“It’s like bedlam here,” Arlow said as the shuttle whisked her and her daughter past droves of men, women and children, clutching shoppings bags and walking hurriedly.

Two other out-of-towners, George and Buff Gula of Toledo, Ohio, also seemed to enjoy the chaos.

“It’s fantastic,” said Buff Gula. “The shopping is so good here, there’s no point in going to New York.”

Looking for Spirit

The shopping was so good at South Coast Plaza that some people, such as Kurt Hoffman’s girlfriend, spent hours at it Sunday. Sitting outside Nordstrom and half asleep, Hoffman, 22, of Huntington Beach, checked his watch and noted that his girlfriend had now been inside shopping for 2 1/2 hours.

“It seems like she’s been in there forever,” Hoffman said with a yawn.

Wes Martens of Mission Viejo said that, at age 66, he is an old hand at waiting for women to finish shopping. On Sunday, Martens waited outside Nordstrom for his daughter.

“She said she’d be in there a half-hour, but I’m figuring an hour,” he said, grinning.

Some people did not come to shop. They came to take in the sights and soak up a little Christmas spirit.

But even they, however, soon tired of the jostling crowds.

“It was just bumper-to-bumper people inside,” Barbara Richard, 35, of Huntington Beach, said as she rested outside the mall with her son, Roy, whom she had taken to see Santa Claus and the mall’s giant Christmas tree.

Eight-year-old Roy, however, said he had a good time. The best part? “Beach bars,” he said, referring to a type of ice cream.