I don’t know why I thought I could get away with it. I knew better, but did it anyway. No one thinking clearly goes to the Super Center at 4:30 on the Friday afternoon of Labor Day weekend. I assumed because the economy is in a squeeze, folks might be cutting back and not celebrating the long, official last weekend of summer in mass this year. I was wrong.

The parking lot cleared up any doubt Walmart might be experiencing a slump. It appears more folks have chosen “drive to” vacations and were stocking up for the weekend after they arrived in town. It would have made my trip easier if they would have supported their home town stores before coming to the lakes.

I was trying to decide between vine ripened tomatoes at $2.98 a pound and Roma tomatoes at .99 a pound when a woman yelled, “Will you please leave me alone?” By her desperate tone, I thought she was being accosted by a stranger, but it was her son who appeared to be about 10. I thought she would realize how loud she was being and quieten down, but she only got louder and started walking toward me. I sure didn’t want to get in her way so I grabbed the Romas and headed toward the meat department.

I guess people are becoming more health conscious, because the ground turkey I wanted was sold out as were several things I was looking for. At first I was put out with the empty bin, then realized everything else we’ll eat over the weekend will cancel out the healthier turkey anyway. After finding reasonable substitutes I wrangled my shopping cart to the checkout. I haven’t bought that many groceries since Christmas.

When It was finally my turn, I simply asked the check out girl how she was doing. I learned she was very excited to go shoot clay pigeons with her husband over the weekend, she doesn’t come back to work until sometime next week and that her replacement was fifteen minutes late. The more she talked the more she was irritated because she was still running groceries over the scanner and not on her way home.

So $130.00 later I leaned my weight into the cart pushed it to the car. Outside I heard a guy say, “Hey, TR how’s it going?” TR called his wife an ugly name and said he was waiting on her. I think people don’t realize when they say mean things about their spouses, it makes them look stupid for marrying them.

I hope all the upset people can relax and enjoy their weekend. I’m tempted to ask the Walmart manager if, right before the next holiday weekend, I could stand with the guy in the blue coat at the front door who says, “Welcome to Walmart” and hand out Be Nice To People bumper stickers.

“If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”
~ Galatians 5-15