We needed cat litter and a couple of other things. No problem. I’m a drive-by shopper. In and out. Back in a few!
Since Walmart had the best price, I went there. It is a place I loathe, but it is the biggest game in these parts — a necessary evil.
As I entered the store, reality hit. You can only go as fast as your fellow shoppers. The vortex opened. Time stood still. There was no escape.
A young mother with a full cart and two rambunctious children was the first speed bump. She stood in front of anything I needed in that aisle while the two children meandered around, touching everything and making sure I could not get past them.
Another woman socialized down every aisle. There didn’t seem to be an aisle where she didn’t meet someone she hadn’t seen in ages, which, I quickly realized, meant last Sunday at church. It was Monday. Still, they had so much to catch up on.
A woman with a Bluetooth earpiece was holding up traffic in the hair care aisle. She was fighting with her boyfriend, who was on the phone. She was hot because he had put her on hold. As I tried to get her attention, the boyfriend returned to the call, and their argument resumed. Arms started waving. Hair was swinging. I turned around quickly. Her braids looked dangerous.
When I finally managed to get everything, I headed to the registers. After waiting in a long line at one of the few that were open, I needed to stop at the restroom before heading home. The cleaning lady, Priscilla, was just going in to tidy up, promising to be “just a minute.”
As I patiently waited, she had been in there so long that I was expecting a sparkling restroom. When she finally let me in, there was little evidence that much cleaning had been done. I guess she spent most of that time playing Candy Crush out of the security cameras’ view.
More than an hour after I entered the store, I headed to my car, lugging 25 lbs. of cat litter, exhausted from my “quick” run to the store.
