My Excursion to Walmart (with footnotes!)

I needed to get out of the house last night, especially after watching my mother stand and admire her brand new baby… Baby Grand piano, that is, from across the room. Many, many times. I almost gagged when I saw the lust in her eyes. I wanted to find a (mostly) sharp object and hurl myself onto it just to get away from the sickeningly happy look on my mother’s face. Jeez, you’d think she just found love for the very first time… very rich love with lots and lots of gold and jewels. Smeared in cake and ice cream.



(Cue music: "Oooh Sweet Mystery at last, I've finally found yooouuu!" This photo can be found on DeviantArt.com. Just click here to see!)

Bleh, I think I’m going to be sick.

So I got myself out of the house for a bit. These days I don’t have a whole lot of energy, so I wasn’t planning on going very far. After huffing and puffing my way up the stairs (and subsequently taking a five minute break at the top to catch my breath…), I made my way out the door, into my car, and over to the nearest Walmart. Yeah, thrilling, I know.

Walmart: where the weak-minded and thin-pursed congregate to butt heads and shopping carts with one another. Walmart: where there is no shortage of dim-witted rude people eager to place judgment on you once they’ve succeeded in taking a comprehensive glimpse into your cart to examine its contents. Ahh yes… Walmart. The place everyone loves to hate, but eventually find themselves going back again and again because of those wacky low prices. Curse those everyday low prices and that menacingly cheerful smiley face that adorns every sale sign!




Hello, my name is Carrie and I am a Walmart shopper.

Putting all drama aside, I was pretty dang proud of myself for making it all the way out to Walmart AND having the gumption to actually get out of the car and do the shopping I’d intended to do.* I took my time hobbling down the aisles of the Wal-Mart super store and found myself going over the mental list I’d made of what I’ll need for THE bag. You know, The Hospital Bag… the one thing you hope to high heaven you don’t forget in your rush/panic to get to the hospital when all hell (a.k.a. your water) breaks loose. After all, that was the whole purpose of my errand this evening: to get the goods that will fill my Hospital Bag.

Items on this list included but were not limited to:

- travel toothpaste (I’ve already got the toothbrush and mouthwash)
- small bottle to hold shampoo (because I don’t trust hospital brand shampoo)
- heartburn medicine (a necessity of life for me, doesn’t matter if’m preggers or not
- Ace bandage (for the binding of the bubs… if you don’t know what I mean then you’re not ready to know)
- pads of the maxi sort *sigh*
- Puffs Ultra tissues (I’m expecting a snot storm. Getting teary-eyed tends to lead to snotting on one’s self)
-Snack Wells brand devils food cake snacks (I’ve heard it’s normal to be famished during or after the process of birthing a baby. Go figure.)
…and most importantly…
- Tucks and/or Preparation H medicated wipes

That last item would’ve scared the bejeezums out of me to purchase at any other time in my life. But tonight? Not so much. Let’s just say that I got enough Tucks and PrepH wipes in my cart to make anyone nervous of being within a 10-foot-radius of me for fear I might shoot deadly flames out of my rear.

The mere thought of which made me smile.

But seriously, you should’ve seen the looks I got from the people there at Walmart! When I was in the toiletries section picking out my toothpaste two dudes of a Latino nature strolled by at different times. However, both men managed to eyeball my belly not just once, but at least three times. EACH. Their technique was sloppy, though, as was obvious by the fact that I was staring right back at them to see if they’d actually raise their eyes to my FACE. No such luck. I have to admit that I was a bit amused by the whole thing, though, since they’d obviously taken a peek at all the “feminine protection” items I’d piled into my cart. And by “feminine protection,” I don’t mean a chartreuse flame thrower.




Besides, they probably had no clue they were staring quite as intensely as they had been. And if they were aware, they probably thought they were being sneaky, staring at the big, round, tired-looking Juera.**

Those guys were just the first obvious gawkers of the evening. My favorite of all the gawkers, however, also happened to be the last.

She had passed me in the baking goods aisle where I was contemplating buying more tapioca. As I stood there calculating just how much tapioca I could consume, a mousy-looking woman in a brown trench coat walked by ever-so-slowly, taking her sweet time to examine the contents of my cart (by this time I’d sort of tried hiding the massive quantities of butt wipes I had piled up in my cart under the huge bag of maxi pads. Not that it made any real difference). I also saw how her critical eye then slid over to my pregnant belly.

What was a little surprising was the fact that she took a double-take. And on top of that, I was disturbed by her look of disgust and disbelief. It was at that time that I reached out and grabbed her mousy brown hair and yanked her head back, pulling it down to my belly while shouting, “go ahead, have a good stare! Take it all in because you’ll never know what it’s like with a rat face like that!”

Ok, okaaaay, so I didn’t actually do or say that, although I sure wanted to. Just the thought of it made me smile. But I didn’t do it because that would’ve been rude, and I sort of felt sorry for her having to look so much like a rat.

Instead, I found that I’d unconsciously chosen the same checkout stand as her, and was morbidly amused by her shock that I’d followed her. Yes, she took yet another double-take, only this time she looked at my face, which expressed a deep exhaustion and a fierce, “don’t EFF with me or I’ll set you on fire with my flame-throwing ASS!” look as I glared right back at her.

I smiled for the third time that night as she scurried away. Hmph. Wimp.



(Everybody sing with me: "THE SUN IS A MASS OF INCANDESCENT GAS, A GIGANTIC NUCLEAR FURNACE...WHERE HYDROGEN IS BUILT INTO HE-LI-UM AT A TEMPERATURE OF MILLIONS OF DEGREES! THE SUN IS HOT, THE SUN IS NOT A PLACE WHERE WE COULD LIVE... BUT HERE ON EARTH THERE'D BE NO LIFE WITHOUT THE LIGHT IT GIVES!" *bum bum*)

Footnotes:


*Lately I’ve found it incredibly difficult to find the motivation to do those more mundane tasks, like grocery chopping, going to the library, or turning over in bed. You may laugh now, but wait until YOU’RE eight months pregnant and ready to pop. Yeah, that’s right. Suddenly it’s not so funny anymore and you find yourself thinking, “do I really need to wash my hands again? I mean, I washed them the 6 other times I got up in the middle of the night to pee and my hands are bleeding and cracking, they’re so dry. Surely I haven’t gotten that much fecal germ matter on my hands in the brief time it took to trickle out what little pee I could muster, right?” Then, shuddering at the thought of a fleck of rogue fecal matter making it onto your hands which will, no doubt, make it to your face sometime before the next pee break, you sigh deeply and proceed to wash your hands for the 7th time that night.


**According to the Urban Dictionary, a “Juera” (pronounced WHERE-ah, only you roll the ‘r’) is, “a white girl, especially a blonde female. An American girl.” Of course, I didn’t need the Urban Dictionary to tell me this since I’d found out the meaning the hard way. In two words: sexual harassment. I quit that job shortly after what I refer to as The Juera Incident. I’ll never understand why Latinos/Mexicans (whatever the more appropriate politically correct term-du-jour is) fancy us blondes so much.