Wal-Mart

For a few years now I have had a strange aversion to Wal-Mart.

Perhaps it was when they moved into their now “SUPER WALMART” gigantor store, I really dis-like having to re-find all of my favorite things.

Perhaps it is the realization that every shirt I bought there would shrink from top to bottom but widen from side to side.

Perhaps it was the fact I finally learned that when I go there to save $5 on diapers I still come out spending at least $100 on “great deals” AKA a bunch of crap to unload from the car and then find a place for at my house.

Perhaps I simply don’t like walking 5 miles to overfill my cart and then when my little ones start screaming I get in line for check out, THEN wait in line for another 30 minutes before I get to actually leave the store.

Perhaps it was the time my husband went to buy cigars for a hunting trip and the checker (behind the cigarette counter) almost wouldn't sell him any, claiming they were bad for him and he really shouldn't smoke them. Good thing she was there to educate him, I don't think he'd ever heard that before. 

Suffice to say, It’s not the, “Let’s-boycott-the-big-box-stores-to-make-ourselves-feel-better.” reason that regular people like to toss around. I have my own special list of reasons.

My husband likes Wal-Mart. Well, let’s say, my husband has a pretty good grip on our spending and doesn’t mind walking 5 miles for chicken feed when he will save $5 per bag, that is $20 when you buy 4 at a time. He's also smart enough to not take the little kids with him. My husband is a man, after all, and has a practical mind. A gift I would love to have.

For our “date night” on Sunday we left our younger kids in our older kids most capable hands and ventured out for a night on the town. We stopped by Silly Sister’s house to drop off some whey left over from Husband’s cheese making that day. Our pigs (that dear Sister is caring for) love that stuff and it’s nice to see it put to good use. We then ventured over to Town where we decided to grab a bite at Red Robin. They have delicious onion rings and “mama” drinks there.

We then did what we had gone to town to do, and that was a Wal-Mart run. I only go there with Husband as he is strong enough to push the cart loaded with 200 (sometimes more) pounds of grain from the WAY back of the VERY big store up to the registers. While he got the chicken feed I got our typical bananas, apples and Cheerios, then stopped off at the kids clothes section to get my son 2 new t-shirts and my DD a tank top that she had specifically requested for these few hot days we have had.

Up at the check out line, we only waited about 7 minutes that evening as it was about 10pm and was greeted by a young man checker, maybe 19 or so. When he rang up the first bag of chicken feed he exclaimed, “Wow, that’s so expensive!” It was funny in my mind because when I was trained at Safeway we were taught not to tell customers that we thought our store prices on things were expensive as we don’t want to discourage them from spending their money with us. While the young man was ringing up our groceries he noticed my husband’s work jacket and asked him if he worked for "that company", to witch he replied, “yes.” The young man says, “I hate "that company" they ripped me off!” and proceed to tell us the story of how my husband’s employer he has worked for for 20 years, has provided very good health benefits, has paid him faithfully so that we can pay our mortgage and buy expensive chicken food; completely ripped him off. I feel bad for the fellow that he felt this way, I also know that if you talk to someone there about these sorts of problems they typically can reconcile it with you. And, wait, aren’t we his customer tonight??

I paid for the groceries with cash and he gave me back the one dollar bill and then proceeded to count out the change into my hand. I’m very un-familiar with this method of giving change, and then he dropped a bunch of it on the ground and hopefully found it all.

After Husband went to the car to load the chicken food; I bought the kids clothes. The fellow was placing the clothes into the grocery bag and asks, “So are these for your grandkids…………….(long silence where I had no idea what to say)………..or your kids?” Wow, this is a totally shocker for me. I am only 35. My oldest is 14. I felt so sorry for the guy and so indigent all at the same time… I said, “Soon enough, soon enough. It goes by so fast you don’t even know.”

What a dumbass.

As we drove home that night we enjoyed the chuckle we got out that memorable experience. An even better horror story to add to the other Wal-Mart stories under our belt.

Thanks, Wal-Mart, you make memories that last a lifetime.

15 years

I was talking to my mom the other night, and she asked me about our anniversary. Did we go out? What did we do? Then what, etc. She declared that I should go write a blog post about it since I haven't written in so long and she liked the story...

15 years. It's a big deal. Woop woop, and I say that in my most sarcastic way possible. I know it's a big deal but it's not a big deal. It's just us, silly people, still, yep still here. So off we go (now able to leave our chitlens home ALONE, ) the oldest ones do a fine job of watching the little ones. They also do a fine job of making mac-n-cheese and sort of cleaning up the kitchen too. Let's just say, since we discovered leaving them home ALONE, life has been maaaavalus. Allowing us to go on dates like never before, mostly just getting out of the house, going to my sister's to hang out or just out for a quick bite or a drive...spending alone time for us and for the kids has been a huge bonus.

I decided to put on a skirt for our date. After all it was our anniversary. I told the kids that if they behaved well that day I'd let papa take me out to a movie and dinner. I'm not a huge movie buff and feel like generally they're a waste of a good date since you can't talk. But I digress. We left the house with an hour before the movie began. Hubby couldn't find jeans with out a hole so we headed to Freddys to pick up his annual 2 pairs of black jeans. We found them and I wandered over to the women's clothing section finding some super awesome things that I had to have. When he found me he asked for the time, it was 7:15 and the movie started at 7:25. He gasped and we rushed up to the register. I didn't gasp 'cause I don't really care if we miss previews. After we purchased our clothes I asked him if he wanted to change, he gasped again, No! We're LATE! So off we went.

In the car he decided to try to understand how my brain worked when it came to time sensitivity and he was really trying to wrap his head around how I just don't really care about being late...the conversation didn't get far as the theater is close, but I don't think he'll ever understand.

At the theater (our new big totally awesome one in town) we got there mostly on-time/late-ish depending on who you ask and stood in line for our snacks. I got my popcorn and he got his hot dog, pretty normal for us. He insisted that I go in since he still had to doll up his dog. I sat down in the lit theater with the local commercials playing.

He came in to sit down but accidentally dropped his hot dog onto the floor. "Oh no!" I said, "your hot dog!"

"Oh no!" He said, "My new pants, they have mustard all over them."

This is where my mom asked how he got his new pants on...well, he changed in the car while I drove to the theater.

I assured him his pants would be fine and we could wipe it right off and they'd wash. But your poor hot dog, that can't be saved! He left to get another hot dog, he came back and sat down and ate it.

Him: "What time is it?" Me: "7:45" Him: "What?! I wonder if they know that the movie hasn't started..." Me: "Well, go ask them." He did, so then they started it. But I had to agree with the lady down the row from us who said, "where do we have to go?" I said, "yeah, where? We have a babysitter."

About 15 minutes into the movie the fire alarm started going off, not in the movie we were watching, but in our theater. So the lights automatically turned on, the movie shut off and we left. False alarm. Go back sit down for 5 minutes, still no movie...oh! the movie is back on...not where it shut off and with no sound. Nice. 5 minutes later an employee came in on her walkie talkie telling someone how we had no sound. And then she passed out free movie tickets to everyone...SCORE. 5 minutes later the sound came back on. Did they press their little rewind button and rewind the last 15 minutes of the movie for us? Of course not.

We left the theater at 10:05. Most restaurants in our town close at 10pm on weeknights. So he said, "lets go to the 24 hour diner." Hmm, diner on our anniversary...not much of a choice at this point. We got a pizza (note: try to avoid diner pizza, diners make good eggs, not pizza), he bought me flowers and we went home.

I love my life. I get frustrated with myself, with my emotions, with the constant list of tasks, but when it boils down to it it's a wonderful life and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

My man and me about 15 years ago.