Conversation with My Wife (167)
It is a scary place out there. And then, throw in the Trump Pandemic…
I have Walmart™ issues. They go back to soon after we moved into our current house, and we needed a particular kind of light bulb. But it was after normal business hours. Oh, said my wonderful wife, a few months after our wedding but still in the honeymoon phase, Walmart™ should still be open, and it’s just a few minutes down the road from our new house! So off I go to Walmart™, which I learn is actually a Supercenter™ with departments that have their own Zip+4™ codes and is bigger than any structure I have ever been in and not organized in sort of Sensible Fashion™ and all I want is a Stupid Lightbulb™ but there’s no one there to help me so I wander like the lost tribes of Israel because it’s the Year 2000™ AND I DON’T HAVE PHONE GPS YET and it was very unnerving and I finally found the section with light bulbs and they didn’t have The Kind I Wanted™ so an hour later I came back home and it was very upsetting and I Don’t Like To Talk About It™.
So that’s background.
Anyway, Deb wanted to get school supplies to donate to a group that has this crazy idea that school will be normal this year. Or maybe it’s just, “Hi, Chris, honey, we know that nothing is like it’s supposed to be, and your school can’t keep a schedule from one week to the next, and your Internet is always down because Xfinity Is Evil Incarnate™, but here! Have a three-ring binder. And some pencils. It’s going to be fine, honey.”
Anyway, Walmart™ has cheaper school supplies. Also, the only supply of over-the-counter sugar-free chocolates¹ in the large packs. (Yes, they are also available online. We’ve tried that. Let’s just say that a package of chocolate left out in the Pennsylvania summer sun is only edible after time in a refrigerator. And a certain amount of effort peeling packaging from formerly-liquid contents.) So off we went to Wally World, as Deb’s ex-husband used to call it.
DEB: So we need to go in…
ME: Those doors. There.
DEB: But people are going in the DO NOT ENTER doors.
ME: Yeah.
And thus the theme of our visit: Signs and indicators that no one cares about. Or appears to notice.
DEB: (once inside) See, I think some of these signs on the floor don’t actually apply any more. They’re left over from the major shutdown.
ME: And yet no one has removed them because…?
DEB: It’s Walmart™ honey. Just watch what other people do.
Deb proceeds to journey through the school supplies area. I start to follow her, rapidly determine that there is no way on God’s Green Earth™ that I can navigate down those narrow side aisles with a cart the size of a Ford F150™ and maintain social distancing. So I find a spot in the main aisle and just hold my breath as I am passed by Walmart Shoppers™ with masks around their chins. I also noticed that the one-way arrows are ignored by everyone. Especially people with Walmart Vests™ on.
Deb found me, eventually, and dumped an armload of school supplies in our cart. Then we navigated to the food side of the Land of Endless Aisles™ to get sugar-free candy. We soon determined that (1) we could make our way down aisles following floor arrows and avoiding people, or (b) we could get to where we wanted to go. We picked (b). Eventually.
On the plus side, we checked out using self-check. One less person to deal with.
We dropped off the school supplies at the collection point on the way home. Done!
And, when we got home, we took advantage of a previous run to Pennsylvania’s Fine Wines & Good Spirits™ store. For obvious reasons.
DEB: But we have enough chocolates to last us another month!
So… does any online retail seller ship sugar-free chocolates using insulated shipping containers? Asking for a friend.
¹I’m diabetic. Deb loves chocolates. Marriage is a series of compromises. Deal with it.
Copyright ©2020 by Jack Herlocker. All Rights Reserved™ and if anyone from Wally World is reading this, it’s all satire and any publicity is good publicity, right?
