Parking Lot Rage

You've heard of road rage, but there's a new occurance of epidemic proportions sweeping the nation at a Walmart near you. It's called Parking Lot rage. If you haven't heard of it or experienced it, consider yourself lucky. Yesterday was a lovely day, the weather was gorgeous, especially for Michigan, which normally doesn't see summer-like weather until oh, August. lol I enjoyed much of the day outside playing with the kids. After our fun in the sun filled day, I decided what better way to top the day off than to head to Walmart? LOL I had procrastinated this trip as long as I could, but there are just some items I do normally buy there because they're cheaper there than anywhere else. I rarely go to Walmart anymore, it is much too frustrating. But once or twice a month, I bravely go where no man/woman should go - to Walmart. Walmart is very different up here than the one I was used to in Ohio. I am not caught up in a romantic fantasy here, it really IS different. In fact when I go back to Newark, I actually DO like to go back to my old shopping haunt. I recognize people, they recognize me, the greeter is the same happy old guy that I remember when Brandon was just a tot. Oh the memories..... And so, before we moved, my store of choice was actually Walmart. I never feared for my life or that of my children's in their parking lot. However, we moved out of state, but as luck would have it, we're within minutes of a local Walmart. Oh thank God! We can't be too far from civilization if there's a Walmart! At first, I was jubilant at the familiar sight, and made it top priority to learn my way to our local Walmart, even before the local hospital or my son's new school. lol Now I can say that Walmart is no longer what it once was for me. The one that I live by has completely soured my once fine bargain shopping taste buds. I have heard stories of other Walmarts 'round the world, so I am fairly sure the one in Ohio was a rare exception. Lets begin with the parking lot. I've had many a bad experience even before I step foot in their store. Yesterday however, I rearranged my thinking and chanted in my mind "this will be a positive experience, this will be a positive experience". As I pulled into the parking lot first I get nearly side swiped and cut off by someone leaving, doing what seemed to be 80 mph. This is nothing new, people act as if it's a speedway for some reason. So I breathe a sigh of relief that our first near death experience has passed, and we pull in to find our usual good spot. Ahhhh not to be had. But hey, it's warm, we can walk can't we? So not to be deterred, I go very slowly up and down a couple isles, until I hit a road block. Why oh why do people leaving the store have to walk directly in the middle of the parking aisles? Why? So we come to a hault and wait and wait for several people and their brood to pass, and then round another corner to have what looks to be a whole family reunion look directly at us, and then procede to walk, as if daring us to run them over. Not only that, but they walk as slooooooooooooowly as possible, with smirks on their faces, as if to say "go ahead, run us over, I'll sue". Oh if only I had been PMSing....they might learn not to tempt fate in such a way! HA! I always look both ways, and taught my kids to do the same, didn't we all learn that in kindergarten? Well maybe some parents and schools skipped that lesson. The Clampetts, all 32 of them, finally all made it across and we finally get a spot and make our way into the store. I have my list in my head and try to make my way through there in record time, but I have my kids with me. We go over the rules, as we always do: me: "Look but don't touch, got it?" kids: silent pause, spacey looks in eyes, then "Mom, can we get icecream?" me: "No' Hailey: "Mom, I'm huuuuuuuuuuuuuungry" me: "we'll be eating dinner soon" Brandon: "Can we get corn on the cob?" me: "we'll see" Hailey: "Mom, my butt hurts" me: "Hailey, behave yourself" Brandon: "why's Hailey's butt hurt?" me: "Be quiet" Hailey: "can I get outta da cart?" me: twitch twitch twitch and so forth and so on We dash through the store like we're on Supermarket Sweep and make it up to the checkouts. We wait in line, and finally get to the belt to load our fruits and veggies and charcoal and pay the cashier. And here we go..... Me: "Uh, what did those grapes ring up?" Cashier: blinks and keeps ringing Me: pause....wait for response....."excuse me, but what did those grapes ring up?" Cashier: heavy sigh, "I don't know, let me check" Cashier: $3.79 Me: "Was that the total? or price per pound? They were on sale for .99/lb" Cashier: "I'll have to call Management on this" She keeps ringing while we're waiting for the big cheese to arrive, and then I notice something else rings up wrong. I interject and tell her to put that on the list to discuss with management. And then a third error.....now before you go poo-pooing me, I'd like to say that I do not get great joy or pleasure from correcting these errors. I feel rather stupid for holding the line up, however, if something says 1.50, then it better not charge me 3.02. So the manager comes over, he is an awkward short skinny fellow with what looks to be a bit too much V05 hair product going on in his 'do. He slips his key in the register, types in some very secret and official code, and tells her to call each department and verify the prices before she does an adjustment. Meanwhile there's an angry mob forming behind me. So I tell her to just put these items back if it will take much longer, but she insists on paging departments to call her......so one lady behind me moves out of line muttering something, I'm sure something unflattering about me, and moves to the next line. Finally we get it all figured out and as it turns out, I wasn't lying about the pricing after all! I love it when they need to "verify", because if I were going to lie and try to make a profit, I'd at least go for a bigger profit than .50. Oh well, anyway, we get our bags and our receipt and we're in the homestretch. We go out the doors and I huddle the kids close to me, and we scan the lot. There are cars whizzing by after they make it over the tallest speedbumps I have ever almost lost an undercarriage to. However strange these mammoth speedbumps seemed to me at first, now they make perfect sense at the Walmart Internation Speedway. So we wait until the cars are done ramping the bumps, and we cross, then I begin doing a run/skip/jog to the car, because we've almost been hit twice now in this parking lot. I'm happy to report, yet another trip to Walmart and we made it home alive!