Saturday At WalMart

The problem with being a morning person, and the mother of a baby who is up no later than 6:30am any given morning, is that the stores don't open until 9am. At the earliest.

Let me back up. The list of what each parent is to supply for the big kindergarten Valentine's Day bash came home yesterday. M. needs a Valentine's gift bag by Monday so he can start decorating it for the party. I am assigned to provide 21 party favors for their treat bags. So, since the boys spent the night at their grandparents last night and D. is away for Army drill weekend and we needed formula anyway, Boo and I headed out this morning a little after 8:00 to try to find these items, because the "happy time" window before Boo needs a nap is pretty narrow when she wakes up so early in the morning.

I do have one little digression from a story that basically has no point anyway, which I will interject here. Why is it that on a weekday, when I'm in a hurry to get to piano lessons or a meeting somewhere, everyone on the island drives about 10-20 miles under the speed limit, but on Saturday, when nothing is open anyway, everyone feels the need to ride my bumper and act like we're all trying out for NASCAR and I'm just crimping their style by driving 46 MPH in a 45 MPH zone? I don't get it at all. Because, as I found when I drove to the Dollar General, nothing is open before 9am anyhow.

Seeing that sign on the door, I looked at the clock on my dashboard which said 8:38, and realized it would not do to sit in the parking lot for that long, so I resigned myself to do my shopping at WalMart this morning. Being open 24 hours means it was, of course, hopping. Perhaps all those Dale Jr. wannabes this morning were actually in a race to get the closest parking spot at WalMart. Or it could have been Lowe's. They were open, too, I saw. At any rate, Boo and I found ourselves at my least favorite shopping destination this morning. If Target wasn't in the next town over, we'd go there, but, alas, I'm not sure the rumors I keep hearing of our town getting a Target are ever going to come true.

We found M.'s gift bag, the groceries I needed and some party favors, as well as the required Valentine's cards they will be needing shortly (might as well spare myself another trip out here and get them now!), paid for said items and began our walk back to the parking lot. Because the seat on the WalMart carts is somehow wider than the ones at the grocery store, Boo's carseat will not set on it the way I usually do. This means her carseat takes up all of the cart, while my purchases were placed underneath. This is an important tidbit, because as I approached our car, I noticed that one of the bags was drooping off the bottom of the cart and spilling bananas into the parking lot. I looked behind me and noticed we'd already left a box of chai behind as well. So, looking so put together, I gathered up all the scattered purchases, put them in the van, took the cart to the cart corral, carried Boo in her 500 pound carrier back to the car.....and looked at her feet. One sock missing. I looked back at the corral, there was one purple sock all on its lonesome there where she had kicked it off. Meanwhile, there were two cars waiting for me to hurry up, lady, and get your car loaded already since we had a close spot, but I ran over and retrieved the sock anyway. Oh, I forgot to mention that while loading the bags, it occurred to me I ought to check and make sure I hadn't left anything else behind when the bag slipped. Sure enough, only two packages of party favors when there should have been three. At least I was pretty sure I'd been carrying 3 through the store. I checked the receipt - only 2 "novelties" listed. Somehow the third package never made it through the checkout with me. It's probably still sitting there on the counter, or has already been rung up with whoever came along behind me. Someone is probably at home now putting away their purchases saying, "Why do I have a package of little stretchy hearts???"

By this time, the Dollar Tree was open, so I moved the car closer to it and ran in with Boo. They had the same party favors!! I would only need to buy one!! Then I checked my purse. No cash. None. Back to the car we went and I scavenged through the change holder and came up with $0.17 and a handful of peppermints from Sonic. So close, but yet, so far. Am I pathetic, or what? Then I happened to look in the back seat. J. had left his lunchbox there yesterday afternoon! And he had just enough change in his "just in case there is a bake sale in the cafeteria" pocket for me to run back to the Dollar Tree and buy the last package of party favors (remind me not to reprimand him for his carelessness, just this once). I almost did the dance of joy right there in the parking lot, but decided I looked foolish enough as it was. Though I don't think I looked nearly as foolish as the woman across the parking lot who, it looked like out of the corner of my eye, popped her child in the face (at least, she did something in the child's face, because when I looked up, child was holding her mouth) and proceeded to yell at her. Loudly. Good reminder to watch my own tone of voice with my kids, by the way. And this is why I do not like WalMart shopping. Excuse me, it's "WalMarts" when you live in the south. Have a great day.