A trip to the Walmart in pictures

Every picture tells a story. This one is about me laughing at some kid's pain. This had nothing to do with my trip but it is a picture and this post will contain more of them.

All photographs in this post were iPhoned by the blogger formerly known as ~#^7>u. Please, no autographs. I hate writing that fucking name. Next time I’m going to change my name to . or somethin’.

Yeah, I took a trip to the Walmart once. The other day my wife said she was going, so naturally I asked, “Can I come along?”

There were no anti-bacterial wipes at the entrance so my wife had to actually touch the shopping cart. And she hasn’t touched anything since – especially me! We asked the official greeter about the wipes, but she feigned ignorance.

Just to mess with my wife, I demanded an Egg McMuffin (no meat) before we actually stepped inside the store. Luckily there was a McDonald’s right there. Handy! It has been my dream to walk around a Walmart with McDonald’s food in my hand. Scratch one from my New Year’s resolutions list!

Finally inside the store, we headed for “health & beauty” which in the land of Walmart is decidedly an oxymoron. Along the way I marveled at the opportunity to watch giant televisions displaying commercials while I was in the very act of shopping. Wow, I thought. For the first time in my life I’m truly multitasking.

We arrived at Health and Beauty and my wife began looking for some damn thing or whatnot. Meanwhile I found a Dr. Scholls machine that would allow me to find my “custom fit” for othotic inserts. That sure sounded kinky. And to find out my custom fit all I had to do was take off my shoes, stand on the machine in my socks, pay $50 and catch athlete’s foot and some foot fungi from strangers. I figured the podiatrist cartel was behind this, so I gave them the toe and moved on.

Right by the machine, though, I cleverly found anti-bacterial wipes and I proudly showed them to my wife. In so doing I earned several hero points. The trip was off to a good start!

Next to the health & beauty but before you got to the toys was the outdoor center. For some godforsaken reason my wife wanted to go in there in the dead of winter. We were the only ones in the entire area. I liked that.

Walmart and Hooters. A match made in heaven. I was living the American dream!

An alarm must have sounded in Walmart HQ because an employee soon ran in the door behind us and became our shadow. I think they were worried we were master outdoor center criminals. Yeah, we were there to steal some manure. (Achievement: “poop” tag. FTW!) That’s also been a long time dream of mine!

Instead, while my wife and the suspicious worker talked man stuff, I was overcome with the urge to buy a cute pot and saucer. All I needed was a plant to go with. Being who I am, I selected the most freakish thing in sight: A pink grafted cactus. They’re always in season, right? I put “Heisenberg” (as I named him) in my cart knowing he would make a nice surprise for my wife.

Next stop, my wife wanted to go to the grocery store, but I insisted on a stop in electronics. I wanted to check out the bluetooth headphones to use with my iPod Touch. Like I told my wife later, “I think I’ve forgotten how to shop.” Trying to find anything remotely like what I wanted was harder than hell. I finally engaged with the teenager on duty and he had absolutely no clue what I was talking about.

“Headphones? Bluetooth?”

“Yeah, they play music and stuff. Then your ears can hear it and shit.”

Oh well. Apparently I wanted the only item in the universe they sell on the website but not in the store. We moved on.

As we made our way through the grocery store, I have to admit, there were occasionally very good deals that could be found. These were evidenced by completely empty shelves where product used to be. “Yep, there was definitely a good deal here once,” I said sagely like I was some sort of grocery store archeologist.

Prime steak flavor potato chips - it's what's for dinner.

To help pass the time, which was moving incredibly slow, I decided to covertly start putting weird stuff in our cart. Antagonizing the wife made the time go quicker. First I tried the Hooters Wing Breading. I used to love chicken wings so much. But the package said it also worked on shrimp, fish and veggies, so I figured the product would be a good way to bring back memories of the crappy food in the restaurants where I had never really eaten by choice.

I also tried to get a jar of cactus in our cart. I don’t think I’ve ever had cactus before. I figured it would be a good icebreaker, something me and Heisenberg could share as a way to get to know each other. There was something strangely compelling about the thought of a little cactus cannibalism action.

I’ve had some Herr’s potato chips before. They have some interesting flavors. There, in the store, I found Kansas City Prime Steak Flavor potato chips, artificially flavored. I carefully checked the label to see if actual meat was an ingredient. The list was confusing but it didn’t seem like there was, which made the steak chips vegetarian. My wife responded with a satisfying, “Gross!”

There were other stories along the way, equally entertaining I’m sure, but I waited a couple of days to write this and now I no longer remember. Hey! Where’s my binky?

I do remember one last thing. It was a potato. Not just any potato, though. It was a microwavable potato. And all this time I thought you just took any potato, poked holes in it with a fork, and viola! It was microwaveable.

I guess not.

You say potato, I say so dumbed down even an American can nuke it.

No longer is a baked potato as difficult as turning a dial on an oven and waiting a few minutes!

Thank god they have finally invented the microwave ready potato. I’m just grateful I visited the Walmart so I was there to see it. No more straining your brain with complex formulae to get that tater just so. Now just read the label, pop it in, and follow the instructions written at a third grade label. Yes, it’s just that easy.

If you can somehow figure out how to defeat the fact that every single potato is individually wrapped in plastic. You’ll have to open it first. Mwuhahaha.

To sum up the trip, we wasted close to two hours of our life, made a new friend (Heisenberg!), and got some of the crap we wanted at what we assumed were good prices. (That’s the whole pitch, right?) But we didn’t know for sure. And my wife was extremely frustrated because the selection was lacking and we ended up having to visit two other stores to finish off our list.

Thanks for being there in our time of need, Walmart.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a project to finish. I’m working on a baked potato. Or should we call that a microwaved potato?