ZOMG. Yesterday we went to [gasp] Wal-Mart. Again.
My wife was invited to her cousin’s baby shower. Apparently there was a gift registry at Wal-Mart. My wife wanted to go, so we went.
Not to give away too much of the plot behind this post, but after about five minutes in the store, my wife was overheard to say, “The hell with this fucking place!”
Oh yeah. Now I’m interested. 🙂
The wife had it in her head to get cloth diapers. So to the baby section we went. It was the second time I’d set foot in that area of the store in my life. The first, of course, was the last time she needed baby shower gifts.
She searched and searched and searched and could not find cloth diapers. It was futile. I even helped her. The quest for cloth diapers was epic fail. However, I slowly became aware that there was a shitload of diaper styles to choose from, if you’ll excuse the pun.
Some of them that caught my eye included (and none of these are made up):
- Baby Dry – Erm. Isn’t that the purpose of all diapers? These ones were apparently for “newborns.”
- Natural Fit – Yeah, don’t bother with the unnatural fit diapers. What are you? Some kind of loser? Your baby wants comfort!
- Snug and Dry – Snug sounds good.
- Little Snugglers – More for the newborn!
- Ultra Leakguards – Um, yeah! Forget dryness. I don’t want pee on me!
- Little Movers – Apparently for babies on the go.
- Supreme Little Movers – For upper class babies on the go?
- Little Movers Jeans – For those delicate times you need your diapers to look like blue jeans.
- Swaddlers Sensitive – Helping a sensitive tushy sounds noble, but where is the snug, dry, blowout, leakguard protection?
- Extra Protection – This one comes with a secret compartment for your handgun.
- Premium Stretch – Your baby must be fat or a descendant of the Fantastic 4
- Boys Underpants – It’s still a diaper but you feel so much more sophisticated and older.
- Ultratrim – Lets air through, presumably to carry smells to innocent passerby.
- Ultratrim Baby-Shaped – OK, who’s the dumb ass that would ever buy the other kind?
- Cruisers Dry Max – Because nothing should say “chicks” like a diaper.
- Overnites – Apparently all of the others can only be worn in the day time.
- Preemies – Gentle umbilical cord care – need we say more? For those who just can’t wait.
- Pure and Natural – That refers to the diaper, not the baby. It’s not easy being green.
- Stages Swaddlers – Start at level 1, gain experience and work your way up!
Note: To keep this list from getting unnecessarily long, all diapers for dogs have been omitted.
Just how many frickin’ kinds of diapers do we need? There was jumbo, chlorine free, touch of aloe, super absorbent, super dry, sensitive, different stages, hugflex, soft and cozy, non-woven tapes, clothlike backsheets, cotton, breathable, gauze-weave fabric, caterpillar-flex, ultra-skin guard liner, mild cosmetic ingredients, super-stretchy closure tabs, and much much more. Just mix and match these terms and you can design your own new line of diapers fit for an American baby, the best babies on earth.
Any idea why the only thing we couldn’t find in the friggin’ story was disposable diapers? My gut tells me it has a little something to do with wanting you to keep coming back again and again for more. If you bought cloth diapers they’d sell much less of them. We must consume and dispose, consume and dispose. Nothing else will do!
OMG! So freakin’ funny. First off, you said you were helping me search for the cloth diapers, however now I read you were actually studying all the various packages. Secondly, your post made me laugh so hard I gave my self an asthma attack and then I peed my pants a little. Guess we should have picked up a pack of Depends.
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What a coincidence! My daughter, her fiance and I (yes, we travel in packs) were in Walmart the other day to buy canning jars (we’re not canning, but that’s another story) and we passed through the diaper zone and had the same reaction. The diaper below particularly attracted my future son-in-law’s attention as being CRAZY.
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Not many people use cloth diapers. And if parents use daycare, they request disposable diapers. Out of my 1,254 friends who have recently had babies, only one uses cloth diapers. And she’s the only one that can’t find a daycare.
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That certainly takes a lot of choice out of the matter, doesn’t it? Wow.
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I still find it most disturbing that you were at Walmart in the first place. 🙂
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Hey, don’t be showing your envy just because you don’t have one in your neighborhood! We have TWO — they are only a couple of miles apart, but very different demographically. In one, the shopping population looks like a representative example of almost every human on earth. Not kidding. It’s very cool, really.
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We avoid it like the plague, but sometimes we gotta do what we gotta do. Like when we get a Wal-Mart card as a “gift” (har!) or when the mother-to-be has “registered” at Wal-Mart.
Whooo! I crack myself up! 🙂
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“Extra Protection – This one comes with a secret compartment for your handgun.”
This isn’t a bad idea, actually!
Very funny post! Another reason why I am glad I never had babies.
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I’m glad I never had babies, too. At least not directly.
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The jean diapers come with a bonus bottle coozy and a comb for your mullet. I’ll tell you where the cloth diapers are in WalMart, but only because you made me laugh this morning. They are by the pajamas and wasmcloths. Because the only reason sane people buy them is to use them as burp cloths (they are extra-absorbent). 🙂
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LOLZ! And I just saw a commercial for jean diapers the other day. Women were ogling a toddler wearing them. I found that highly inappropriate and disturbing.
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“We must consume and dispose, consume and dispose. Nothing else will do!”
That sounds like it could be Walmart’s new slogan! LOL
Kudos for looking for a more environmentally friendly gift ideas!:) The children of parents who used re-usable products such as these will thank them for it in the future.
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Thanks! We know more people who are making the move away from disposable items. Things like the Swiffer that require you to keep buying more parts to keep the product usable. How about a broom and a mop like we had in the old fashioned days? Is a Swiffer really better in any way, shape or form?
I like the slogan idea! 🙂
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Congrats on another “poop” post. Keep it up! No babies here, so I’ve never had the need to shop the diaper section, but I know I get confused with all the different kinds of toothpaste available.
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Grats! 🙂 I’ve only been in the diaper section twice in decades and I certainly learned a lot.
Toothpaste, cream cheese, toilet paper, Wheat Thins … whatever. How many consumer choices do we really need?
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Hah! I, too, went on a quest for cloth diapers when my daughter (the gerbil’s younger sister) was pregnant. Not so the baby could wear them, but to use as that time-honored shoulder accessory of new moms eveyrwhere, “the spit rag”.
I searched EVERYWHERE: WalMart, Target, KMart, Babies R Us, Baby Depot..etc. Nothing! I even looked online. Oh, they have them there, organic cotton and all. A year’s worth of organic cotton diapers could possibly pay for my granddaughter’s first semester of college..so I gave up. I ended up buying something labeled as “burp cloths”…which looked suspiciously like diapers. Truly ridiculous.
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I guess people think the more the better. But many times it just makes us more confused.
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Oh yeah, Lisa. It was pretty incredible. The Wal-Mart gift registry did have cloth diapers listed yet we couldn’t find them in the store. We searched but gave up. It’s almost like they don’t want you to buy something reusable. Thanks for sharing your story!
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