A Trip To The Underworld

School supply shopping. I don't understand why I ever got excited about it as a child, but I do now understand the look on my mother's face when it was time to go do it.

We had to go to Walmart (trust me people, if there were any other place close, I would go elsewhere. In fact, I wrote the Target Corporation a request to build one here. I close each prayer every evening with "and please let them build a Target within 20 minutes of our house. Amen") and it was a freaking nightmare. Medium Pants and I wandered into the store at about 9:30 in the morning on a Wednesday. Not terribly crowded, so that was in that godforsaken shithole's favor. We picked out what the boys needed - markers, glue, pencils, crayons, paper, folders, etc. and made our way to the front of the store.

They had ONE regular lane open. ONE. There were a couple of Express lanes, but since I had about 45 items, I was excluded from that. They had the self-check, but I really didn't want to scan 45 pieces of crap. So we looked at the ONE lane that was open. There were six people standing in it with carts overflowing. I looked at that and began to feel my blood pressure rise.

We opted to self check. I didn't realize that only four of my items were heavy enough to trigger the bagging sensor. If I had known that, I would have gone to the express lane and dared them to say something to me.

We begin our scanning. I drop the crap in the bag after it's scanned like I am supposed to - only the piece of shit doesn't register it. The perky bitch on the computer keeps telling me "Place item in bag or press Skip Bagging." So, I press skip bagging, not knowing that you can only do that three times in a row. After the third time, perky bitch tells you to wait for an attendant.

So it goes, every three items, I have to stand and wait for the attendant to come punch in her code and clear the system. Only so I can scan three more items and wait on her again. And just for the record, I don't know if she was arthritic or what, but c'mon lady - get the lead out of your ass, would you?

Finally, after she had to punch in her code about 4 times, I lost my shit. I asked her, after telling her that I absolutely despised that store and would go elsewhere if there were any alternative, if she was smart enough to override the system so I didn't have to wait on her slow ass after scanning every three bottles of Elmer's glue?? Since there was only ONE real lane open, I didn't want to spend my entire freaking day in that store, could she either fix the self check or shove all my Crayola shit up her incompetent ass?

She just looked at me with the most vapid eyes I have ever seen. I don't think she even realized I was mad. She just said she could, and did it. So after that, it only took me a few more days to finish checking out.

As Medium Pants and I were walking out to the car, he said: "Mama, why is always so hot in that store?"

Without missing a beat I said "Because it is Hell, son. When you die, if you don't go to heaven, you will be stuck wandering the aisles of Walmart and trying to check out because that is Hell, right there."

He just looked at me and said "You hate that place, don't you?"

He is in Challenge Class, folks. A real brilliant kid.