Seven Deadly Sins Comitted at the Local Mall

     When I first began to draft the paper it was hard to come up with a direction for the paper. Where was the story going to take place, and how was I going to make my paper unique? I decided on the mall because there are a lot of people and many things can happen, so it would be more likely for these events to occur there. It was easy to come up with the first few sins because they were actually things that I had witnessed before, but I was easily stumped by a few. It was also easy to come up with situations for each sin but the paper as a whole did not flow very well. From reading "All Seven Deadly Sins Committed at Church Bake Sale," and writing my first draft, I have learned the importance of making clear and interesting examples in order to make your point clear to the reader.
     When I read my draft again, I thought that my ideas were good but they weren't executed in the best way. The paragraphs were very separate and the paper didn't flow well together. I think that my concept for the paper is good because its believable, but I need to have better examples or clarify/explain them better in order to make the paper more appealing. I like my introduction paragraph, "This Saturday my friend and I took a lackadaisical trip to the mall. Neither of us had very much money so we decided people watching would be an interesting way to pass the time. For those who don’t know, people watching is literally when you sit and watch people walking by. The goal is to not let them know you are watching them but you definitely see some interesting people," but I think it could be more interesting. Perhaps explaining what people watching is in a different way, or an example of something funny that I have seen that is not one of the seven deadly sins will help. My draft now is more like a list of events that happened while I was at the mall rather than a story, which may be more appealing. I need to work on my transitions from each idea so that the paper ties together better. I don't think I necessarily need to come up with new ideas or situations for each of the sins, but they could be written differently to be more interesting. I also think I ended the paper rather abruptly, almost like I was rushing to finish or couldn't think of an idea, so my paper could use more of a clear conclusion.

Seven Deadly Sins Committed at the Local Mall

            This Saturday my friend and I took a lackadaisical trip to the mall. Neither of us had very much money so we decided people watching would be an interesting way to pass the time. For those who don’t know, people watching is literally when you sit and watch people walking by. The goal is to not let them know you are watching them but you definitely see some interesting people.

            That Friday at school we had just started a writing project in English about the seven deadly sins so my friend and I thought it would be funny to see if we could find a person who exemplified each sin in the mall. As we sat on one of the fountains abundant with shrubbery, we immediately noticed a young girl walking towards the food court carrying what seemed to be about thirty shopping bags. No one should purchase enough items to be carrying that many bags. My friend and I turned to each other and in unison stated “Gluttony!”

            We had decided to sit down right near the Abercrombie and Fitch store, which I do admit is one of my favorites. My friend and I were chatting about the kids at school who are obsessive or stores like that and will only purchase and wear clothes from those stores, and right as we said it, a girl our age walked by decked out in all Abercrombie. She wore a blue polo t-shirt, a pair of skinny jeans and those rubber flip flops, all with the signature moose somewhere. Obviously this girl exuded the sin of pride as she walked by with that smirk on her face.

            We had been sitting a while and decided it would be to benefit, even though we really didn’t want to, to actually get up and move. As we began to walk towards our next destination, Starbucks, we passed the toy store. It had been a while since either of us had been in a toy store so we decided what the heck, why not take a look. Apparently we decided to walk in on the wrong day, MAJOR SALE. Anytime there is a sale anywhere, people go crazy. The line was out the door with parents and small children and we found spotted two sins right there. First was a father dragging his child to the end of the line as the kid screamed, “But I wanted both toys!” when his father had only bought him one. Of course the father replied with the typical response, “Johnny if you don’t quiet down right now we are leaving and I'm not buying you anything.” Greedy little boy.

            As we regretfully ventured further in we realized we were walking into a war zone. Toys were thrown everywhere, and then we heard the screaming. One soccer mom was yelling at another about who was in line first. They both had to get to their book club meetings and couldn’t spare anytime, but ironically they had been standing in line for close to a half hour and neither of them seemed to notice that it probably wouldn’t make any difference who went first. The wrathful argument immediately sent my friend and me out of the store.

            After drinking our mocha-whatevers we went to forever 21 where we again encountered multiple sins. The first thing we saw were two moms grabbing everything they saw. This was definitely a store they should not have been shopping in but clearly they were envious of their teenage daughters. We walked around for a while and found the slothful group as well. Three teenage girls had bought multiple bags of clothing for themselves and after walking out of the store, they proceeded to hand all of the bags to their mothers already waiting outside with previous bags.

            Lastly, as we were leaving the mall I heard a woman in the food court going on and on about how she just craved Maggie Moos ice cream. She talked non stop about it and clearly had a lust for that ice cream.