The smell assaulted me before I turned the corner: browned butter, salt, yeasty bread. And there it was: Wetzel's Pretzels, between the frozen yogurt place and the cell phone store. A line of three people stopped me from walking right up and ordering. It gave me time to think. Mall pretzels smell great. The memory of them is fantastic, a rolled-up mish-mash of all the best soft pretzels I've ever eaten. But mall pretzels taste terrible. They're spongy bread, oversaturated with cheap butter, spottily sprinkled with salt.

I stared at the storefront, bored teenager at the counter and bored middle-aged woman at the ovens, and willed someone else to join the line before it ran down. Anyone, please to jump on that bullet, to give me an excuse to walk away, escape the lure of a delicious memory, and avoid disappointment. No luck.

"One original, please."

Lukewarm, soaked in butter to conceal poor bread, and undersalted. I ate half it walking through the mall, every bite a fresh disappointment. Three storefronts away, I threw what was left in the trash.

Curiosity and something familiar in the corner of my eye made me look. The trash was full of half-eaten pretzels.