Yesterday, I went to Wal-mart.
I do 99.9% of my shopping at four locations: Online, the grocery store, liquor store and Extoggery/Vintage-thrift shops. Easy enough. But for whatever reason, I had to pick a few things up and went to Wal-mart. Things progressed smoothly enough. Other than one employee lady who I caught staring at me with the demeanor and intensity of an angry librarian who must have assumed I was trying to shoplift the Always Pads *with wings*, things were ok. I finished up and headed towards the check-out aisles. I saw most of them had multiple customers waiting in line except for lane #7. Lucky #7! It had just one family while every other lane was pretty crowded. I scooted over there to be next in line in good ole Lucky #7.
I got in line and noticed there was room on the counter for my few items. I put the tiny rubber Wall of China item separator down and put my stuff on the conveyor. It was only then that I looked at the family in front of me.
To begin with, directly in front of me was the wife with her back to me. She towered over me and was rugged and sturdy of both hip and shoulder. I am certain that both her mother and father were named "Sven Bjorgenssonsvenson" or something and were both almost certainly championship power-lifters. She was dressed like she was on her way to a log splitting competition and she had no intention of using an axe, preferring to just rip the logs in half with her bare hands to save time.
I looked at the husband. He was maybe 5'6" in his favorite work boots. He was wearing a khaki safari shirt that reminded me of the Crocodile Hunter, with faded jeans and a khaki hat. He was red-faced and agitated; his head on a constant swivel as if he was expecting to be attacked at any moment. He had an expression like a man who found himself in a state of road rage, but never managed to find his way out. He kept his arms bowed out like one of those guys who go to the gym once, never lift again, but walk around with their arms bowed out to make room for the beefy lats that they will never have.
There were three children. Two were standing there, a boy of maybe 8 or 9 and a girl that was maybe 12 years old, beside the cart with the silent stillness of hostages, daring to hope for freedom, but too terrified to run for the open door that lay only a few meters away. The third and last of the children was sitting in the cart, his empty, soulless gaze staring off at a rack in the distance. I have never seen a 2 year old suffering from depression before. There is a first time for everything.
I am going to assume the wife's name was "Girtha". Surely it could not be anything else. Girtha suddenly turned around and looked right at me. Fear clawed its icy fingers all over my gizzard; an organ I did not know I had. I took half a step back and weighed my options. I sized up the group - it was clear that in a fair fight I could easily take on the children. Even all three at the same time if need be. I figured I had a 50/50 shot at the road raging guy who raided the Crocodile Hunter's wardrobe. Against Girtha, though, there was little hope. If I played dead, I reasoned, I might get away with a slight maiming and some bite marks.
As suddenly as she whipped her massive frame around, she turned her back on me. I assume that she either decided I was no threat or perhaps I was not big enough to make a decent meal for her. At any rate, I took advantage of the situation and discretely reached over into the shopping cart of the lady in the next lane when she was not looking. I grabbed a plunger out of her cart and used my knife to start sharpening the tip of the handle, hiding it behind my cart. I wasn't going down without a fight, should Girtha change her mind.
Girtha and her husband started talking to the cash register. That event struck me as odd as that sentence does to you. I looked again and there was no one behind the counter, yet Girtha and her husband kept talking. I leaned over and saw nothing. I leaned even further. That is when I saw, what at first appeared to be a blue loofah behind the counter. I thought to myself "Why would someone leave a blue loofah on a stool?". The loofah moved and I realized it was not a blue loofah, but was actually a little old lady with blue hair. She was the cashier. All I was seeing initially was her paper-thin blue hair in a fresh perm.
Now, when I say little, I mean she MIGHT have been 4'0", even giving her credit for her hospital shoes and the rubber mat she was standing on. When I say she was old, I mean she looked to me like she might have easily been the Cryptkeeper's grandmother. If not his grandmother, than certainly her sister. I watched as she, with considerable effort, extended her withered limbs to slowly gather up each item and scan it. In her prime, she might have been as fast as a glacier, but glacial speeds were far beyond her ability now. Girtha and the hubby were growing impatient. The two older children began to cower and ease towards the door. The child in the cart looked up at me baefully began humming what I swear sounded like a Nine Inch Nails song. I kept sharpening my toilet plunger spear, preparing for the inevitable.
People started getting in line behind me. I decided after a moment or two, to turn to them and warn them that they had made a terrible life decision and should reconsider. Before I could, a Wal-mart employee wearing a headset came over and escorted the people behind me to other counters that would surely be faster. I thought that was a nice thing of headset to do, and I figured he would come back and get me once the others were taken care of. I would do my duty and stay here with my plunger spear to protect the innocent until headset came back for me. Me and headset were a team, working together to keep people safe and enduring all the risks ourselves! Nope...headset never came back for me. I felt like the guy in those Vietnam war movies that is left in the field while he watches the helicopter fly off without him. Fuck you, headset.
Up to that point, I had not been able to clearly hear Girtha and the hubby in their conversation with the Cryptkeeper's grandmother. However at that instant, Girtha spoke a sentence that I heard very clearly. It felt like the sky opened up and a genuine Acme Co. anvil fell from the sky and landed on my big toe. She said "I have a $5 Wal-mart gift card, some coupons, a $35 pre-paid cash card and I want to put the rest on my debit card." What?!? Bernie Madoff's whole team of accountants would not be able to figure out how to execute that friggin' transaction, let alone the poor creature behind the counter! I nearly vomited in rage.
I will give the Cryptkeeper's grandmother credit - she never flinched. She had the steely resolve of a woman who knew the Grim Reaper was afraid of her, and it occurred to me that it was entirely possible that in her past she might have even been Genghis Khan's Drill Sergeant or something, before she changed careers to work at Wal-mart. She slowly (as if there was any other option) began to walk them through the laborious process of trying to pay for their items using the bewilderingly complex method they were insisting on. It was at that time that the debit card reader broke.
Regardless of what you might think, that did not cause me to completely flip my shit. No. I thought it might be a blessing....after all, if the machine does not work, they cannot use their ultra complex method; right? Wrong. Turns out the reason the Cryptkeeper's grandmother is still walking the Earth is because she really is one determined and tenacious fucker. If she had been born a dinosaur, she would have been a velociraptor. The world's slowest velociraptor, sure - and with blue hair. But a velociraptor nonetheless. Anyway, she relentlessly yet calmly tapped out some kind of lengthy and elaborate code that got the systems back up and running in merely a few dozen minutes. Yay. We're saved.
Girtha and hubby paid, eventually, for their $263.47 worth of items (yes; that is the real number....I heard Girtha say it several times as she kept cursing the machine). I'm not going to bother going into what happened in the parking lot because this has been long enough. I only want to share this axiom:
Jade's Law of Geo-spatial Avoidance: If a collective in a specific location is exhibiting signs of avoiding a specific space (such as a particular lane in Wal-mart), make sure that you avoid it as well. Collective cautionary wisdom trumps individual attempts at advancement every time.
And this is why we are using dollar store pads.
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