Wal-Mart Adventures: Always the place where no one can drive, always

Yesterday, I got my severance pay check, and the bank finally credited my account with it at midnight. Thank God because I was literally in the red until then. I finally had the chance to go grocery shopping after literally days of conserving food and getting ready to fight Vampire Cat for his Friskies and Whiskas. So, I headed to the local Wally World fairly early so I could beat the holiday shoppers. I quickly realized I should have gone at 4 a.m. when I was fighting off insomnia.

Here’s something I’ve always seen at Wal-Marts, and it was clearly evident today: No one can drive — outside OR inside the store.

I don’t know what it is about Wal-Mart that makes a housewife in a Subaru station wagon want to drive like someone on Grand Theft Auto. The bad driving, though, extends to the store’s inside, where the housewives, retirees, broke college kids, and people both rich and poor (mostly fairly poor or middle-class) can’t even drive a buggy.

I first came in from the highway and pulled into traffic that moved at a lurch that was slower than most zombies. Obviously, “work hours” were still not a good time to come to Wal-Mart. I then proceeded to park in the boondocks and walk inside. In the process, someone in a Lexus SUV let me cross after first getting ready to mow me down like a West Virginia deer. Taking roadkill home to eat is legal in this state (no joke), so I guess the driver was a cannibal.

The real challenge was inside the store.

Inside, I was nearly slammed into by just about everyone at every turn. It was like a bad demolition derby! Around every corner, everyone was so obsessed with getting that Great Value cereal or whatever that they were just plowing through the aisles. Maybe the whole thing was just contagious. Maybe everyone started getting this, “Oh, so you’re going to run me down! Hell, I’ll run everyone down!” attitude.

I admit that I almost got that way myself when I made it to the register. At the register, I was right behind a woman who held up the line for a good five minutes (that felt like five hours), talking to the cashier about her Christmas tree. Here I was with a buggy full of frozen and refrigerated food, and I still had to fight through ridiculous traffic to get home after this. She finally got out of the way, and I thought I was home free.

Alas, the bad drivers were still out in full force.

I ended up having to snake through the parking lot because a driver on one side of the parking lot nearly backed into me, and another one from the other side backed into me. A woman who passed me said, “Be careful. They’ll run you over out here.” I said, “Yeah, and they’ll do that inside the store, too.”

Current music: Don Henley, “Dirty Laundry”

Wal-Mart Adventure: Where the hell is Entertainment Weekly?

A six-day work week full of straight, full-on weather disaster coverage finally ended last night. Thank God. So after stumbling out of the office and into my beloved car (Welcome home!!), I needed some comfort. I needed an escape — a nice, sweet escape.

So, how did I begin this “escape”? Well, I went to the only place in southern West Virginia open at that hour and that I believed would have all I wanted. Unfortunately, I found myself in another crazed situation while trying to get what I needed for an escape. I never get a break.

My darling Amanda, author of It’s Blogworthy, had posted how she wanted chocolate ice cream that night on Twitter. My mouth was watering. I must have ice cream. I had also been online while closing up shop and found out Steve Carell and my beloved Tina Fey were on the cover of this week’s Entertainment Weekly. If Tina Fey is on the cover, I must buy. I thought those two things combined with the fact that a new episode of “30 Rock” was waiting for me at home would make a long, long hard week go away.

I got to one of our local Wal-Marts, and I dashed straight to the book/magazine section to find Entertainment Weekly. It was totally MIA! This place has speciality cooking, firearm, hairstyle and teenybopper magazines galore — but NO ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY? What the hell?! So, I found myself searching through a sea of Glenn Beck, Karl Rove, religious and the latest teen vampire books riding the “Twilight” wave. No Entertainment Weekly! No Fey and Carell! To Wally World’s credit, the place did have the April issue of Esquire, that has my beloved Ms. Fey on the cover. The interview is great, and the photo shoot is smokin’ hot. I’m not a lesbian, but Tina Fey is almost enough to convert me 😉

Anyway…

I took the magazine with Tina Fey on the cover — wearing goth makeup and a short, dress with a seriously plunging neckline and my girl handcuffed to a cop — and started dashing through the aisles like I was dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh. My logic was this: If Soap Opera Weekly, TV Guide, etc., are at the registers, then other weekly magazines should be there, too. Wrong! I tried to ask for help. I didn’t know whether to roll my eyes, laugh my ass off or be embarrassed when I had the image of me asking a West Virginia Wal-Mart Blue Suit where the Fey/Carell copy of Entertainment Weekly was. Here I was, a girl in a business suit coupled with Chuck Taylors, a purse with Lady Gaga and Alice in Chains CDs in it, long dark hair and diva makeup, carrying a copy of Esquire with a totally vamped-up Tina Fey on the cover and asking where I could find a copy of Entertainment Weekly on which Steve Carell is wearing lipstick, by the way.

I might as well had walked up to Mr./Ms./Mrs. Blue Suit with a pentagram carved into my forehead and carrying copies of Girlfriends along with that Esquire. But that didn’t deter me. I quit giving a damn about what people anywhere think of me quite some time ago. But I could find no blue suit in sight. I eventually gave up and decided to look elsewhere. I was lucky enough to find that Esquire copy.

While running across the store to grab the ice cream, I saw the second disaster of the night. This guy was standing in the checkout line in a puddle and with a half-empty two-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper, apologizing to the people behind him in line. Oh well, I could have been THAT guy. I began the desperate hunt up and down the aisles for the ice cream I wanted, this fat-free double chocolate deal that Breyer’s makes. I can usually find it on sale at Wally World, too! But I got to the ice cream aisle — and my favorite ice cream was gone!!!

I’m thinking, “Don’t tell me my damn ice cream is gone, too. No Entertainment Weekly AND no fat-free double chocolate?! The bastards! The Wal-Mart bastards!!! You’re going down, bastards!!”

But I realized that the King or Queen of Wal-Mart had apparently re-arranged the ice cream. Some ice creamy items I remembered were in the back were now up front. So that meant that my ice cream was moved to the back! Holy Chocolate Craving, Batman! I believe I’ve solved the mystery! And I did! The bastard rulers of Wal-Mart decided to not only not provide me with that Entertainment Weekly, but they also moved my ice cream all the way to the end of the aisle, to the very bottom shelf and basically crammed underneath a bunch of stuff. It took some serious digging, but alas! Ice cream! I felt like hoisting it above my head as I finally dashed for the cash register! At least I would have some guilt-free chocolate ice cream as I took in a new episode of “30 Rock”! Victory was mine!

Well, it was mine for about 30 seconds. One thing I have seen at multiple Wal-Marts in multiple states is that out of the 25,000 lanes they have available, only two or three will be open at any time. If you go there at the butt crack of dawn, you’ll probably only see one open. The ones here never have the self-checkouts open, either.

I sprinted for the express lane, and — I kid you not — about three people who were just slightly closer did the same and got in front of me. The guy at the register was pretty much buying all of Wal-Mart, even though he was in the express lane. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I saw him shove an entire rack of Miley Cyrus wear, Sam’s Choice pop and deer rifles to the register. The two women in front of me didn’t have an egregious amount of merchandise, but the cashier took her time getting to it. The woman directly in front of me — who had a mega-sized bag of Ol’ Roy dog food, smaller bag of Meow Mix and tube of Aim toothpaste in her buggy was obviously getting anxious. She was standing in front of the buggy, with her hands clasping the bars — wiggling her fingers and slightly pushing the thing back and forth. I was sort of worried she was going to go crazy and shove the damn thing into my kneecaps.

Oh yeah, and the whole time I was there, I was standing in a huge mop-water spot. Remember the Dr. Pepper spiller? Yeah, one of the underpaid Wal-Marters was having to clean up that mess. So, I’m standing there in my black, canvas shoes and black slacks, probably standing in bleach, whatever Wal-Mart brand floor cleaner they use and Dr. Pepper remnants. Did I mention I was holding ICE CREAM? Yeah, while I’m waiting, I’m feeling the ice cream container getting a bit softer. On top of that, the wait was to the point where I was having to switch that ice cream container back and forth between my hands. It would basically freezer-burn one hand, and when it got to be agonizingly painful, I’d switch to the other. It was like playing hot potato, only much, much colder. Tina Fey was tucked under my arm, and I was trying not to crinkle the magazine I wanted to keep forever and not get it covered in ice cream condensation. And at that rate, I was also trying to keep Ms. Fey from being covered in melted chocolate ice cream, too.

So, I got another vision in my head. Ms. Anxious to get Ol’ Roy and get the hell outta here was going to bash in my kneecaps with the buggy when she finally snapped. I’d be lying in a puddle of floor cleaner and what was left of the Dr. Pepper — with busted kneecaps and melted chocolate ice cream, Ol’ Roy, Meow Mix and Aim all over my face and chest. Poor Tina would be thrown into the bakery items with 95,000 grams of fat in them. It would have been a tragedy to see this absolutely smokin’ cover photo of her covered in ultra-sugary icing and sprinkles.

Finally! Sweet salvation! The anxious woman who wanted to feed her dog and cat and brush her teeth was out and darting for the exit like it was the finish line. Soon, I would do the same. I kindly asked Ms. Wal-Mart Cashier to please bag my magazine and ice cream separately, which I’m so glad she told me she would have done in the first place. There are kind-hearted people in the world, still.

I sprinted for the exit and luckily didn’t set off the Wal-Mart Inventory Control thing that slows you down and makes you feel like a street thug even though the only thing that happened was the anti-theft device not being deactivated. Free! Free!

Sort of…

Because we’ve had snow and flooding from hell here recently — which has caused my extreme lack of updates as of late — even our highways look like dark hollers in the woods. So right at the exit, there was a hole in the road that was literally as wide as my car. It was deep enough to tear out the chassis or at least eat a few tires. Let’s not forget that I didn’t want to have to take my darling back to the shop less than a week after I finally took her home!! So I had to ever-so-strategically center my car around that hole and make sure I pulled onto the highway as straight as a board. I’m getting ten times more anxious than what I did when my fingers were getting ice cream frostbitten and getting ready to be bashed by Dog Food Lady. But my car and I made it out in one piece.

I bolted down the interstate at full-throttle with Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of” blaring across the hills and valleys — and singing along ever so loudly. “30 Rock” was calling me from home, and I was more than eager to answer.

New feature: Wal-Mart Adventures

OK. First, I announced I was going off-topic every so often. Now, I’m going to get even crazier.

I’ll be periodically posting “Wal-Mart Adventures”, my own stories from visiting Wal-Marts where I live, elsewhere, wherever. I’ve lived in three states and visited several others. Wal-Marts, no matter where you go, are strange places full of strange people. You run into EVERYONE at a Wal-Mart.

Case study: Have you ever visited the site People of Wal-Mart? That site never fails to make me happier than kittens and rainbows.

I truly believe this is relevant for this blog, anyway, because where do broke people shop these days? In this economy, the only thing we can afford besides Wal-Mart are dollar and consignment stores. Occasionally, we can splurge on Target. 😉

I got my inspiration last night while on my own Hunt for Red October. Long story. I’ll explain it for the next post.

Enjoy!