I Am A Grocery Bag

It's a gloriously rainy day in the Sun City and I couldn't be happier. Rain makes this city clean again, if only momentarily. Goodbye (for a day) to 106 degree weather and wind/sand storms and hello to the grey skies and rain drops. I know I'll hate it tomorrow, when the humidity is there is a thin layer of mud on everything, but today I will cherish it.

I sit her in my bed with Little Bug watching Nick Jr., the dog on the floor (begging us to put him on the bed), the cats avoiding the dog at all costs, and a whole blog I need to write for Friday. I'm debating between my late-night Walmart shopping experience from last night or taking the easy way out and posting pics of my week. Photo Friday sounds fun, but I know the majority of you don't come here for my instagram'd pics, you come here for the snark. Le sigh, the snark I shall deliver.

I went to Walmart after after class last night. I know, never go to a Walmart Supercenter after the sun goes down, but I had to. I needed butter (and other shit) and not having butter in the house would unleash the wrath of Paula Dean. 

I figured it would be an easy trip. No Little Bug, no Hubby, just me and a well written shopping list that coincided with the store's layout. If you're going to go to Walmart, have a plan, right? I even went into this with a good attitude. I vowed that I would not get offended or in a fight that would leave myself or other's verbally or physically wounded. Any intentional or perceived offenses would be brushed off my shoulders like I was Jay-Z.

It started in the parking lot. I have no problem parking in the back spots, keeps the carts and crazy parkers away from my car. I spotted some empty spots and turned down a row to get to them. As I did, a minivan of many colors came backing out towards me. Any one in El Paso knows that if you see this plate coming at you, avoid an accident at all costs! It means no insurance.

It was dark and the van had no tail-lights or reverse-lights for that matter, a muffler dragging on the ground, and they were exiting a handicap space without a permit. Classic. I honked my horn to narrowly avoid getting smashed and drove to my spot. I parked and exited the vehicle quickly because I wanted to catch the driver and inform him his lights were out. See how good I am? I was giving him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know his shit was whack and illegal. I tried to flag him down but he flipped me off and sped-off with only one head-light working as well. 

I shook it off and headed inside. I got my cart, pulled out my list and proceeded to shop. Produce was first, some tomatoes and broccoli slaw. I had to wedge in past a behemoth of a man to get the slaw. He stood in front of the pre-packaged salads and glared at them in disdain. I said excuse me twice but he didn't budge. As I reached in for the slaw, he turned his glare to me and for lack of a better word, barked at me. It was like a "woof" and a "cough." And as awkward as it sounds. 

I moved on to the frozen section and each isle was packed. I wanted to pass through them quickly because the first two frozen isles of the "Big Walmart" as we call it, have a very distinct, wet dog smell, mixed in with a pungent curry ass aroma. As I am an expert Mario Kart driver, I maneuvered my cart through the minefield of screaming children, lard asses, and random, skeezy single men and emerged in the smell free zone of the bread isle quickly. I'm still not confident I got everything I needed, but my nose needed relief. 

All was mostly uneventful for a while. I was courteous to people when are carts would come to an intersection. Each time I would say "Oh no, after you" and it would be met with a dirty look because I had the audacity to do the right thing. I would politely wait for the single mothers with 3 to 8 kids to move out of the way or remove their child from the shelf I needed that they were climbing. I really just shopped and observed. Until, the egg corner. 

In our Big Walmart, McDonald's is located in the back of the grocery section, across from the eggs and butter. That corner is super dangerous as there is always someone barreling towards McDonald's or camping by the eggs. I rounded it carefully and still almost ran smack-dab into an employee stocking the eggs. I avoided him, but not his scowl. I picked up a carton and opened it to check for cracks. He see's me do this and blurts out "They're not broked!" They were almost broke when his outburst caused me to almost drop them! I nervously smiled and said "Okay, thank you. I was just checking." He replied with "I do a good job stocking. They aren't broke. It makes me mad when people check." I wanted to tell him that the eggs are ALWAYS BROKED but I moved on to butter. I normally get the store brand because I'll buy several and freeze the ones I am not using, but all that was stocked was the name brand. I said (mostly to myself) "Well somebody wants everyone to buy Land O'Lakes." My humor was lost on him as he practically yelled "I'm not there yet!" 

I made a beeline to the refrigerated juices as fast as I could. What a creeper. I parked my cart, opened up the door, grabbed my Simply Apple and no sooner did I shut the door, I turned to find 3 shopping carts blocking my way. A man had one and he moved out of the way. A woman had another and she and her little boy moved. The third cart just sat there. I was beginning to think a poltergeist was getting some OJ. I started to move it out of the way cautiously and the little boy burst out laughing and said "I left it there!" So you're an asshole who likes to move other people's carts? Got it.

From the grocery section I headed down the back of the store towards the toys. Little Bug needed, um, something. I hate coming home from Big Walmart without something for her. I'm that mom, oh well. As I was passing the little tiny clothing section where it intersects with shoes, my right side was slammed into by another shopping cart. I held in my "What the fuck?!" when I saw the no more than 4 year old boy who had crashed into me. I pushed the cart away and started to ask him where his mommy was and he screamed right in my face. Not a stranger danger scream, more of an "I hate the world and I should be asleep so I'm going to scream at you for no real reason scream." The employee stocking near us told me "I'd hit him back" and went back to working. His mother's voice came from a whole different section. She yelled out "Mijo, stop it" and went back to her cell phone convo and flipping through a magazine. 

A few feet down the way I passed a man with so many tattoos, I am still unsure of his race. I smiled and started to look away when I saw one tattoo on his forehead that made me do a double take. "It's cool," he said. "You can stare." And stare I did. It read, and I couldn't make this up if I tried, UNEMPLOYED. I had to ask him, well, why. He explained that he thought it was funny because people always tell you you can never get a job with tattoos on your face. So I asked, "And are you, um, unemployed?" He laughed and said "Naw, I own my own shop." To be fair, it was in his hair line and he had a shaved head so if he grew it out, it wouldn't show. The rest of his face tattoos would still be visible though, so I guess growing his hair out would be pointless.

After hitting up the toys and getting Little Bug a ballerina themed memory game, I made my way to the front of the store. Because Walmart wants it's customers to commit suicide, there were two registers open. Just two. I got in the one closest to the exit I needed to use and pulled out my phone. I was playing Brave: Temple Run (way better than the original) when I kept feeling something hit between my shoulder blades. A tiny woman loudly conversing on her cell phone in Spanish kept getting animated and bumping her head against my body. Yeah, that close to me. I said "Excuse you" two or three times but when I turned each time, she would bump me again. My happy Walmart time was now over. I turned quickly and elbowed her square on the side of the head. I said "Oh, my goodness, I didn't see you there" as she looked at me with outrage. Bitch stepped back though. 

While in the slowest, longest line ever, I overheard some great stuff. The woman at the register after I clocked the midget in the head was yelling at her kid that the PEZ he wanted was too expensive....as she was buying 3 cartons of cigarettes. Behind me, a man wearing an ARMY PT shirt with jeans and sneakers (ew) and an Army haircut was loosely conversing on his cell phone. He had a case of beer in his hand as he said "Well she better suck my dick at least bro. I didn't buy a case for just sex." Such a classy dude reppin' for the US Army. 

Each customer was greeted by the cashier with a "Hello, how are you?" and each customer flat out ignored him. I decided I would greet him when I got up there, maybe brighten his day. I smiled and said "Good evening, how are you?" You know what I got? Nothing. I think he grunted, but definitely did not answer. Wow. I'll just go fuck myself. He finally looked up and said "I'm sorry, I just realized you talked to me. No one ever says anything." Poor guy.

So the lesson of the day, don't go to Walmart at night....with a bad attitude, because if you do, you'll miss all the good stuff. See you Monday!