Malls malls malls

So there is one more guilty pleasure that I need to own up to: malls. I fucking love malls. I grew up in a mall, I worked in a mall, I had friends at the mall, I still shop at the mall.

I hear that some people get nostalgic when they go back to their old high school or college, well I get nostalgic when I go back to my old mall. It was a huge part of my life that I will happily admit to. So this is my ode to the mall, the bitch that raised me.

10. The food court. I don't come from what one might consider a "cooking" home. My mother is actually a decent cook, but growing up my family just preferred going out to eat. There were weeks when we would literally eat out 4 out of the 7 days. It was awesome, but taking a family of 4 out to dinner on a regular basis can be expensive so what did we do? We went to the food court. I have and will continue to always love the food court. I love the smell, I love the variety, and I love the buzz of people all around. Food court haters are the worst, go eat some home cooked lettuce, I'll take my flaming wok.

9. Christmas decorations. You know how I know that Christmas is coming? I go to the mall and see all the twinkle lights and fake snow. I see the people pushing each other, I smell Yankee Candle company, I see all the kids excited to meet Santa. It wouldn't be Christmas without the mall, sorry but my main religious belief is capitalism.

8. Working. Working at the mall was the best. I started when I was 14 making smoothies. We would run around the back halls that were totes employees only, we had friends throughout the entire food court, and the security guards even let me out of a ticket because they recognized me. I literally spent my teen years working every weekend and I loved every second of it. I made some legit friends and gorged myself on free yogurt and gummy bears. So good.

7. Being a mall rat. I was also the world's biggest mall rat. When I wasn't working at the mall, I was walking around it. Everyday after school I went to the mall with my crew and just hung out. It was like my adolescent playground. Now the trick is, if you go to the mall with a big group, you linger around the food court, if you go with your boyfriend you share a pretzel and sit on the fountain, and if you go with your girls, you have to stalk groups of boys. It can be an all day event.

6. FYE. FYE is the absolute best. You can wander around for a solid 20 minutes looking at every CD imaginable and running into like-minded music fans. I would imagine many a couple fell in love while reaching for the same Jeff Buckley CD. So romantic

5. Game stop. Game stop is cool because you can play xbox for free. They always have the best games on it and you can pretty much hog it for the better part of an hour. Bonus: I bought sega genesis games there for like 2 bucks once. EPIC.

4. The arcade. Arcades are cool because they are just casinos for kids. Ok sadly, the arcade in my mall closed a few years back, but it really was the absolute best. It is totally worth spending $20 on wack-a-mole for a paper finger trap. People always hung out in the arcade, and the goal was always to get one of those big stuffed animals or little TVs, but you needed like 10,000 tickets for that and I never had the foresight to collect or save my pull.

3. Mall walking. Like I said, I used to go to the mall after school and just walk around. Now that I am an adult-ish I can't just wander around for hours with my crush of the week, so I go mall walking with my Dad. It sounds lame, but it's not because I get to people watch and then he buys me Starbucks (as long as he's not on Atkins that week). The best are professional mall walkers though. The ones that do it religiously. When I was working there I knew all of the mall walkers, they took it very seriously, had pedometers, and checked their pulse. You don't see intensity like that outside of the Olympics.

2. Mall crushes. Everyone has a mall crush. When I was 16 it was some kid who worked at Burger King, now it's some kid who works at H&M. The point is, sometimes looking at clothes isn't enough, sometimes you have to look at the people selling the clothes.

1. Mall snacks. This does not include food court food, I'm talking orange julius, cookies, auntie annes, coldstone. God that shit is so good. Besides, after shopping for 30 minutes in H&M you totally deserve a 9343097543 calorie pretzel and a cake flavored milkshake. You earned it babe! Wow I actually just got hungry thinking about it.