What I Saw at WalMart

I stayed home again today. I was a leetle disappointed, since I'd made an awesome lesson plan for my freshman English class, but once I'd made my call, I turned over in the bed and slept until noon.

All the unproductive coughing has shredded my throat AND made me mad, so I went out to the WalMart to find some relief.

I almost fell asleep twice on the way there and once on the way back. I am that tired.

Once I got to WalMart, I headed straight into the pharmacy area, trailing my germs behind me. I would like to say that no store sells what I refer to as "my mama's Robitussin" anymore, on account of all the lame bastards unscrupulous trailer park residents who have used it for their meth concoctions. I would second like to say that the not-my-mama's-Robitussin has no effect whatsoever on my coughing, but does drastically affect my mental health, in that I get all up in a rage about how it doesn't work.

So today I bought some faux-Mucinex. I hate Mucinex commercials, don't you? There is no way to make mucus cute, even as a cartoon. So I bought the generic kind, on account of it was 60 cents cheaper. That is not a lot, but the generic didn't have the mucus character prominently featured on the front of the box, and that's what made the decision for me.

I did some other shopping and went to the checkout. As usual, there was one full-service line open, six ten-items-or-less lines open, and all eight self-checkouts open. I hate when they do that, not only because it always happens when I am driving a full cart, but also because (please forgive my crotchety old self) that's not how things were done when Sam was alive. Remember how they used to have giant signs that said if there were three in a line, they'd open another register?

Also, while I am on this tangent, how come I have to do all this work now? I have to unload my own groceries, put them back in the cart myself, swipe my own card, and take them out to my car. That is not customer service; that is customer DIY. And for some reason, I feel like I've been tricked, like they opened up these self-checkout lines and at first I thought it was a big treat--"Ooh, I get to swipe my groceries ALL BY MYSELF!"--but now I feel like I'm being ripped off. I feel that, as a loyal customer, I deserve some level of service, but the only person who ever actually serves ... is me. Little by little, stores of all kinds have been putting more responsibilities on the consumer, and we have allowed them to do so. The kicker is that they haven't lowered their prices at all; as an unofficial store employee, am I not entitled to some sort of remuneration? Where's my lawyer?

... um ...

I went to the self-checkout, because the truth is I am a much faster cashier than the ones who are paid by WalMart, and immediately got beeped. URGHHH!!! The lady had to come over and approve my notMucinex purchase. ("How old are you?" she asked. "Thirty-two," I croaked. I was unaware that cough medicines are now subject to the same laws as alcohol and cigarettes.)

The last thing I swiped was my six pack of ... adult beverages (What? Alcohol kills germs!) and the lady had to come over again--though I was expecting it this time, at least. I showed her my ID and ... YOU GUYS. She totally typed in 1974 as my birth year! That is ONE WHOLE YEAR before I was actually born! I was greatly insulted, but I didn't have either the vocal control or the lung capacity to give her a speech, so I let it go.

I rolled my cart out into the parking lot toward my car (by myself, WALMART) and began unpacking and putting things into my trunk. While I was doing this, two cars were apparently divided as to who was going to park in a nearby spot. They wrangled a little, then one lady pulled up to the other lady and evidently made some rather volatile comments, to which the other lady replied, "What?!? Oh NO she di'n't!" which is the first time I have ever heard that outside of Jerry Springer. The first lady drove off in one direction, and the second lady drove in another, and I slowed my grocery packing because I wanted to see how it ended.

The best part was that, while they were each driving off, a totally different lady came in and parked in that spot! Ha ha! As I was getting ready to pull out myself, I saw the second lady on foot, walking through each aisle as though she was searching for someone. I knew that the eventual confrontation was going to be hilarious and tragic at the same time, and I will be eagerly scouring the local paper for reports of "an incident."

It was a pretty eventful half-hour.