ANY of these for sale for $10? (Shutterstock).

We went over to The Other Side on Monday on a mission to fix a broken necklace chain. 

By that I mean South Coast Plaza, which is a short distance from our West Orange County area geographically but from a whole ‘nother mindset culturally.

When it opened in 1966 as Orange County’s first enclosed mall, it was unique, but still solidly middle class territory. It was only about a quarter as large as it is now, and the anchors were Sears at one end and May Co. at the other with a Woolworth’s in the middle.

Sure, it was a cut above the shopping center with a supermarket, drug store and coffee shop, but there were far more Chevys and Fords in the parking lot than BMWs and Caddys.

But times have changed. One of the first things we saw was a sign at an entrance reminding patrons that no pets were allowed and the only K-9s permitted were trained and certified service dogs. It wasn’t long before a well-dressed woman appeared with some sort of designer canine who looked like a cross between a poodle and a zebra.

At Macy’s – successor to May Co. – the nice saleslady offered to sell us a necklace chain for an amount that would have staggered Elon Musk. We recovered from our shock and bought one a lot cheaper and once we had paid for it were told we could have our “old” necklace fixed at a little shop at the far end of the mall, hidden away like a gopher trying to evade the groundskeeper.

On our search for Jostmar Jewellers we passed an amazing array of stores, most of their names ending with vowels, like Armani, Berluti, Cucunelli, Diptyque and so on through the alphabet. And what was even more remarkable was that there was very limited stock on display. We even passed one watch store with – as far as we could tell –– just one timepiece displayed for sale. Not one brand of watch. One watch. 

I had tried to camouflage myself by putting on a well-used old Ralph Lauren jacket, but at lunch I had spilled some hamburger juice – how déclassé, right? – on it and felt like all the folks there who had bought their footwear from Cianvito Rossi instead of Skechers were snickering at me.

We eventually located a narrow hallway at the end of the center. Down that corridor we hiked past the restrooms and finally found Jostmars. 

In their modest but immaculate quarters, a nice lady fixed the “old” necklace for $10. We ended with two useful necklace chains and a lesson: malls that glitter don’t have to cost you all your gold.