I Meant to Post This Last Week

Walmart is an interesting place, and I know you agree with me. It is one huge warehouse entirely devoted to mountains of unnecessary items and a few piles of necessary things. It's no wonder it attracts every sort of person you could imagine. We all go to get our few necessities (i.e. food, soap, socks, etc.) and we walk out with carts heavily laden with the "unnecessities" such as $5.00 DVDs, clearance rack t-shirts we're sure won't shrink even though we know perfectly well that they shrink every time, and pints of Ben & Jerry's simply because they're on sale.

Such was the case yesterday (which was really last week because I meant to post this then). I went to Walmart because all I needed was a package of lunch meat and some cheese. I grabbed the lunch meat and wasn't surprised to find that they didn't have the cheese I wanted because it's Walmart, they have everything but what you really need. While I was wandering around, I spied that Ben & Jerry's was on sale. How fortunate! I grabbed a couple of pints (Everything But The & Cinnamon Buns) and made my way to the register. I found my place in the back of a line that wound it's way into the women's clothes section. A woman in blue came by to tell us that we could checkout in jewelry or customer service if we didn't have any produce. The nice man in front of me laughed with me about how silly it would be to do that as it would take the same amount of time to get over there as it would to just wait. We both whistled our own little ditties (he had a very nice whistle) while we waited and I started people-watching...my favorite Walmart pastime.

I noticed that the woman in front of the nice-whistling-man had a cart of necessities and a couple pints of Haagan Daz. I wondered if she didn't notice that Ben & Jerry's was on sale. Maybe she prefers Haagan Daz...Then I notice how old the lady in front of the Haagan Daz lady was. Her skin was so ghostly pale I'm sure I could see every vein in her bare forearms. Then I noticed how frugal she was. Not only was she only buying necessities, but she paid the cashier with perfect change. Her change was nicely organized in a ziploc bag. While I waited for the lady to collect the correct amount of change so the line could move on, I started people-watching those who entered the store.

In came the motorcycle-tough-guys, (you know the ones with graying beards and leather vests with tassels), the couple who looked like they were on their post-temple Walmart date, several teenage girls in super-shorty-shorts, a few moms with children piled in their carts and hanging on the sides, and one woman who stood out to me from all the others. It was probably because her shirt said this: "I only appear normal."

I chuckled to myself, "Oh, I'm a sharp one, and you can't pull the wool over my eyes!"

The old woman with the ziploc bag of change carted herself away slowly but surely, the Haagan Daz lady checked out like a regular, as did the nice whistling man, and then myself. I kept watching the people going in and going out as I walked to my little blue car in the crowded, but not so crowded parking lot littered with receipts and Dr. Pepper bottles. Everyone from the "apparently" normal woman and the motorcycle mafia all go to Walmart with the same mission:

To get in and get out as fast as possible with more necessities than unnecessities.

But alas, we all have the same fate and fall victim to the the sale on Ben & Jerry's and the $5.00 DVDs. They get us every time. Wretched Walmart.