I avoid the place like the plague…
Today I couldn’t avoid it. Son has a project for school and we decided that we needed golf balls. The small town that I live near has only one place where one might ifnd golf balls, and that’s Wal-Mart, the closest thing we have to everything in one place. I was muttering as we pulled into the parking lot. It was full, but hey, the exercise won’t bother me.
The place was full of that life form I categorize as “Wal-Martians”. some would clal them rednecks, but that’s being derogatory to rednecks. First thing I see is somebody’s little princess headed for her car. She’s all of twenty, Marlboro dangling from her mouth as the maneuvers a full basket, cursing one kid about five while she balances a toddler standing in the basket and another infant in a carseat. We’ll call her the norm…
The store was just about full of people, and it seems that whatever aisle I headed down, there was a group of three or four old friends holding a reunion in the middle of the traffic. Oblivious. Fortunately we knew where we were heading and zig-zagged into sporting goods and snagged a dozen recycled balls and headed back to checkout. Would have checked out in sporting goods, but there was nobody at that counter.
This is where Wal-Mart excels. The place has like fifty registers to check out. And on Saturday morning, the busiest day of the week, they have maybe twenty checkers. Lines are eight people deep. You think that going to the end of the store AWAY from the groceries might get you in faster lines. You’d be wrong. Some heifer with four kids in tow will push two carts full of food clear across the store and stand in front of you with your one item. And get up to the counter and start sorting stuff according to whether it’s eligible foe WIC, the “Louisiana Purchase” card which replaces the stigma of food stamps, or cash. Naturally the cigarettes and beer are paid for with cash.
We made it out of there. Trips to Wal-Mart ARE survivable as long as you don’t count your sensibilities.