Wal-Mart Is A Puss Filled Zit on The Earth's Face.

Last night when viking hubs was making dinner, he reminded me that we were out of diet soda and could I be a dear and pick some up. Actually it was more, "hey, get off the computer and go pick up some pop.' After a heated discussion on why it should be called SODA and not POP because I said so, I left to go get the SODA not POP. I was all prepared to drive to Rite Aid to pick some up before I changed my mind and drove one more block to Wal-Mart because hey! Sodas there are only .67 cents because they weasel out of giving their employee health benefits or a decent pay. Sweet. (not really, but I can't afford to take a stand against Wal-Mart right now okay? get off my back.)

Every time I go to Wal-Mart I always feel like I'm going into a different world. The people that frequent the place seem to have been manufactured by Wal-Mart themselves to wander around the store and give the place that "next door neighbor who scratches his butt in public then sniffs his fingers" kind of ambiance. Because I never see the characters I see at Wal-Mart anywhere else BUT Wal-Mart. So anyways, I pull into the parking lot, within the vicinity of the store and immediately I see...

...5 kids under the age of eight 'chasing' each other in the parking lot as their parents hastily walk ahead of them to the entrance. I swear the parents had this glazed look over their eyes as if Wal-Mart had put some kind of 'buy one pack of tube socks get 1 free' trance on them. Meanwhile, I swerve to the side to avoid hitting two of their five children.

...a couple - both on the phone - mindlessly walking out of the store and deciding that the crosswalk where all the cars enter to get to the parking lot would be a wonderful place to have a slow evening stroll.

...3 cars lined up behind one car trying to 'score' the parking space in the front. Mind you, there was an endless amount of free parking spaces about 15 feet from this 'coveted spot'.

Oh but the antics didn't end there...

As I entered the store, I grabbed a cart because I'm already so annoyed at Wal-Mart that I figured I better stock up on the soda not pop so I don't have to come back for a while. I walk over to grab a cart and almost ran over a 3 year old who darted past my legs - as I backed up to avoid smashing her little head with my knee (oh who am I kidding...by knee I mean my thigh), I accidentally nudged her mother. I blurted out a sorry, excuse me because that's just what I automatically do when I bump into someone. She looked at me like I had leprosy, took the cart that I was going after and hit her own 3 year old with the cart in her haste. Her three year old was okay of course, (kids are rubber...or in this case half covered in snot-it makes a good shield) but I couldn't help but smile and quietly thank mother karma.

Deep breaths, grab a cart, go to the damn soda not pop aisle and get the hell out of here, I told myself. After maneuvering my way through several women dressed in moo moos, a handful of hairy beer bellies peeking out from under a too small shirt and morbidly obese people in slow ass motorized wheel chairs determined to get in my way, I finally got to the sodas and stocked up.
As I headed to the check out but a bitter old soul with ear hair bursting out of newsboy cap rounded the corner out of no where and walked right in front of my cart. I had another cart to the left of me and a rack of clothes to the right of me, so I was stuck and had to wait for the cart to the left of me to move so I could let Grumpy Mcwrinkles through. Meanwhile, I smiled at him apologetically even though it was HE who got in my way - he could have easily side stepped into the women's clothing section, between the racks and gotten out of there. He made no such attempts to move, so I scooted out of Mr. Metamucil's way as soon as the other cart moved along. I said, 'excuse me' like my momma told me to and he had the nerve to sigh heavily and roll his eyes!!!! I told him to go have intercourse with himself and hopefully he'll break a hip while doing so.

In the nicest way possible of course.

Then I prayed to God to forgive me for cursing out a bitter old piece of jerky and to please, please, pretty, please part the wave of idiots so that I may cross over to the promise land of the check out counter (you know, like he did in biblical times.)

God came through and I got to the self check out post without much incident. Well..except for that Wal-Mart employee who came up from behind me and yelled into my ear, "BEHIND YOU!" I thought maybe she was carrying something heavy so I immediately moved out of the way, sensing the urgency in her voice. Come to find out she wasn't carrying anything, she just REALLY needed to get her hands on a bag of chips.

Whew! Good thing I was on top of my game otherwise who knows what would have happened if she hadn't gotten those chips! She might have had to go to the check out aisle next to me that was closed and had no people around it! Or...(gasp) ..she might have had to use the term, "excuse me" in an appropriate volume - but that's apparently a foreign concept to about 95 % of the people who frequent/work at Wal-Mart.

Moral(s) of the story: I should have stopped at Rite-Aid. Less Wal-Mart and More Target in 2009. I should drink more water and less soda not pop. Wal-Mart is to men and women with muffin tops as refrigerators are to magnets. And it's called soda not pop. don't argue with me.