The Pied Piper of Park Meadows

Park Meadows is a huge mall in Littleton, Colorado near the junction of I-25 and C-470. During the Christmas season the parking lot is a zoo, especially when snow and ice have accumulated in the parking lot, and especially during the dark hours of early evening. A few years back we had been to the mall more than once leading up to Christmas, and the mall was still relatively new. One afternoon as we drove along the outside perimeter of the parking lot, I took a right turn to exit the lot, only to discover that I had entered some peculiar appendage to parking lot, an enclosed area with about 25 empty parking spaces - - the only way out was the way I had entered. We exited the little enclosure, and learned that the actual exit was the next right, just a short distance further ahead. A few days later, we found ourselves back at Park Meadows during those cold, dark hours of the early evening. We again found ourselves driving along the outer perimeter of the parking lot, and numerous vehicles were following behind us as we carefully and slowly drove through the lot. Suddenly I responded to an impulse, some inspiration, as we approached the enclosure we had encountered before. I used my indicator to signal a right turn, drove a bit further, took the right turn into the enclosure, and then continued driving slowly along the outer edge of the enclosure. With no small amount of satisfaction, I took a look in the rear view mirror, and saw that each trailing car was "taking the bait." I completed the circuit around the inside of the enclosure, then exited the enclosure - - to the cars entering the enclosure, it seemed that my car, and all of the cars trailing me, were simply entering the parking lot through an entrance from the outside. I proceeded to the true exit from the lot. As we drove away from the mall, I took a satisfied look back as a long string of headlights continued to illuminate the path into, around, and out of the enclosure . . .