Walmart Makes Me Sad
This morning, after helping my mom and her elderly neighbor shovel out from under 8 inches of snow, we got in my car and headed out for some Saturday morning errands. One of which was looking for new curtain valances for her dining room.
The original plan was to hit up Target, as they would surely have some stylish yet inexpensive valances. I mean, what is Target if not stylish yet inexpensive, right?
Sadly, the fates planned otherwise for me and Dee.
See, one of the errands was an eye exam and choosing new glasses for my mom, since she hadn't done that since, oh, 1997.
The eye place, though, is in the opposite direction of Target.
Further, Target is in the direction of my home. So if we had kept with the original "curtain valances from Target" plan, it would have meant me driving 10 miles to get my mom, 15 miles to the eye place, 25 miles back in the opposite direction to go to Target, then 10 miles to bring my mom home, and finally me heading 10 miles back in the direction I had just come from to bring myself home.
You know where this is going, don't you?
Indeed.
See, there's a Walmart up the road from the eye place, so I suggested we just head there and see what they might have. Who knows? Maybe my mom would find something she liked, right?
And really. I should know better. There is a reason I never go to Walmart. There's a reason that, if I am forced to go to this one in particular, I generally need some form of anti-psychotic medication, or at least a stiff drink, by the time I get out barely alive.
Just, I don't know about any of you out there, and the Walmart stores that may be near you. But this Walmart that I went to today? It is literally the place where humanity goes. TO DIE.
Never in my life have I seen such a motley collection of trash-a-licious people in one place.
The woman in the checkout line in front of us was in her late 50s. But was still rocking bleached blond hair, giant "gold" and "diamond" rings on every single finger. And 3-inch fake nails done up in multi-colors with little rhinestones on each nail.
She was buying 4 large bags of beef jerky. Seriously.
And I lost count, after 5, of the number of obviously mentally-ill and/or otherwise not-quite-right individuals wandering about the store. One guy was shuffling along while talking to himself, his hair all disheveled and his pants about 6 inches too short.
Another woman was hitting herself in the head with a mop.
Had a bus just pulled up right before I parked, and from said bus did a morass of "special people" from the local nursing home disembark?
I'm still sitting here in awe of some of the things I saw there.
Are all Walmarts like this? Full of trashy people? Mentally-not-quite-there people? Guys in hunting caps sporting beer-bellies and munching on chewing tobacco?
The weirdest part? This is only 30 miles outside of Boston!! Maybe I'm getting more and more sheltered in my little blue liberal world, what with living directly in Boston and working in ultra-liberal Cambridge. But I felt like I had somehow entered a wormhole and ended up in Kentucky.
(And no, just for the record, mom didn't find any curtain valances there. Naturally.)
The original plan was to hit up Target, as they would surely have some stylish yet inexpensive valances. I mean, what is Target if not stylish yet inexpensive, right?
Sadly, the fates planned otherwise for me and Dee.
See, one of the errands was an eye exam and choosing new glasses for my mom, since she hadn't done that since, oh, 1997.
The eye place, though, is in the opposite direction of Target.
Further, Target is in the direction of my home. So if we had kept with the original "curtain valances from Target" plan, it would have meant me driving 10 miles to get my mom, 15 miles to the eye place, 25 miles back in the opposite direction to go to Target, then 10 miles to bring my mom home, and finally me heading 10 miles back in the direction I had just come from to bring myself home.
You know where this is going, don't you?
Indeed.
See, there's a Walmart up the road from the eye place, so I suggested we just head there and see what they might have. Who knows? Maybe my mom would find something she liked, right?
And really. I should know better. There is a reason I never go to Walmart. There's a reason that, if I am forced to go to this one in particular, I generally need some form of anti-psychotic medication, or at least a stiff drink, by the time I get out barely alive.
Just, I don't know about any of you out there, and the Walmart stores that may be near you. But this Walmart that I went to today? It is literally the place where humanity goes. TO DIE.
Never in my life have I seen such a motley collection of trash-a-licious people in one place.
The woman in the checkout line in front of us was in her late 50s. But was still rocking bleached blond hair, giant "gold" and "diamond" rings on every single finger. And 3-inch fake nails done up in multi-colors with little rhinestones on each nail.
She was buying 4 large bags of beef jerky. Seriously.
And I lost count, after 5, of the number of obviously mentally-ill and/or otherwise not-quite-right individuals wandering about the store. One guy was shuffling along while talking to himself, his hair all disheveled and his pants about 6 inches too short.
Another woman was hitting herself in the head with a mop.
Had a bus just pulled up right before I parked, and from said bus did a morass of "special people" from the local nursing home disembark?
I'm still sitting here in awe of some of the things I saw there.
Are all Walmarts like this? Full of trashy people? Mentally-not-quite-there people? Guys in hunting caps sporting beer-bellies and munching on chewing tobacco?
The weirdest part? This is only 30 miles outside of Boston!! Maybe I'm getting more and more sheltered in my little blue liberal world, what with living directly in Boston and working in ultra-liberal Cambridge. But I felt like I had somehow entered a wormhole and ended up in Kentucky.
(And no, just for the record, mom didn't find any curtain valances there. Naturally.)
3 Comments:
OMG! You have to talk to Talullag about Walmart! She now refuses to go because every time she does something stange and twilight zonish happens to her! I think it's hilarious! Indeed, however, walmart is generally a sad place.
Maybe all Walmarts are a portal to hell, because you just described the Walmart on the Berlin Turnpike in Newington EXACTLY.
Ok John, this post goes right up there with the one about your nephew and the blue paint. I too made the horrible mistake of going to Walmart in Abington on Saturday. Number one, it was after 10:00 am, which at the Abington Walmart, is a big no no. The first thing I encountered on the way in was a crazy woman screeching about "killing the jews" which was disturbing enough. I went straight to the department I needed to find that they did not have the item I wanted (naturally) and then I looked up the cleaning supplies aisle, where there were at least 40 bottles of TIDE lining the edges of the aisle...no, there were none on the shelves. At that point, I darted back out the front doors alive, without anyone asking me to donate $$ to keep people off crack cocaine. By the way, I think I saw that blonde lady w/ the nails too.......I have two words for you: NEVER AGAIN
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