RANT #1

I was at my favorite place on earth, Wal-Mart, yesterday. I neglected to look at my calendar before choosing this merry destination, alas I would have noted that it was the first Saturday of the month, AKA Government Assistance Shopping Bonanza Day.

I had spent 12 + hours on the road on Friday on my way home from Hilton Head, so I wasn't exactly in tip-top social shape after enduring leg cramps (due to walking in new sandals and climbing untold numbers of steps in lighthouses and around Savannah GA), a stop at a Chinese Buffet somewhere in South Carolina, a detour off the highway into some hick town in North Carolina (wanted some coffee and saw a Dunkin' sign by the freeway - they neglected to show the 4-mile distance), another stop in Charleston, WVa at a weird, old Kroger store to get some snacks for the remainder of the trip, a run-in (run-over?) with some rotten road-kill literally a mile from the house, and FINALLY getting to bed well after midnight.

So, I wasn't in a Wally-World mood, to say the least. I went to lunch with my mom, then we headed over to Wal-Mart. Ugh. I dreaded going in there because I knew that there were some things that I NEEDED to get - after being away from home for a week my fridge was hovering somewhere between Old Mother Hubbard's Cupboard and a science experiment (thank you, rotting blackberries forgotten in the crisper drawer).
I walked past the kid (20-something?) pan-handling out front for some mission trip to Africa; slipped through the greeter station without so much as a "Hiya!", selected my cart, and proceeded to the produce department. To my dismay, I found that the cantaloupe melons were ice cold, which meant that they had likely been frozen and rendered mushy; the apples were hail-marked and bruised, the bananas were florescent green they were so under-ripe, and the trash-heaps were out in full force. And no, I'm not referring to the waste bins for the corn husks - I'm talkin' about the folks with 5 kids, 4 teeth, 2 carts full of junk food and one WIC card to pay for it all, ON MY DIME.
Anyhoo, I'm over by the onions, minding my own business as I steered towards the potatoes, and this hulk of a woman on a Mart-Cart (scooter-ish thing) goes screeching in front of me at top speed (so about 3mph on a Mart-Cart at maximum tonnage capacity). Not only is the basket of the Mart-Cart full of junk food and other assorted crap, but she's also TOWING A SHOPPING CART with her - filled with more garbage!! I stopped dead in my tracks, partly due to my curiosity about the carnival side-show in my path, and partly because I knew that getting my cart knocked over by a water buffalo would not improve my disposition for the day.
Lest I be disappointed with my Wally-World extravaganza so far, Sam Walton's ghost decides to be an a-hole and pull a prank on me - the cart that I had was slightly defective - with a gap in the fender-thing over the wheel of the cart that was *just* big enough for my pinky toe on my left foot. (you know where I'm going with this one...)
My cart comes to a screeching halt due to the Volkswagen-sized behemoth in my way, my foot doesn't *quite* come to a stop as quickly (I don't come equipped with ABS, you know) and so my toe slips into the groove of the cart fender, which slices a nice little chunk out of the flesh, just below my toenail (more accurately: where my toenail was previously situated, since it got BENT IN HALF upon collision). I gasped and dropped an F-bomb (NOT under my breath); the Clydesdale on the scooter in front of me gave me a dirty look, then if I wasn't already drawing enough attention, my cell phone rings at full volume - it's my mom - she's in the bread aisle looking for me. I manage to utter something about "my toe is bleeding, I can't talk right now" and hung up. My mom came over to find me, looked at my toe and pronounced that it "just needs cleaned out really well - don't let it get infected though because it'll never heal".
And so I hobbled around the store with blood slowly oozing from my new wound, limped out to my truck and loaded groceries inside, and got myself home, only to find that there's a little flap of skin just hanging by a thread, and my toenail is bruised and creased/broken. Arrrrgh!! I cleaned/ clipped/ Neosporin-ed and bandaged it, and it still hurts like an MF.


The moral of this whole story?


1) DON'T go to Wal-Mart on the first Saturday of the month unless you have a Direction Card.

2) Always drive through potential road kill - don't bother to swerve in an attempt to miss it because it'll still f-up your day.