Fear-Inducing Words: Walmart on Christmas Eve

I could whine and make excuses ... busy at work ... been so tired ... yadda yadda yadda. Whatever. The end result was that because of poor planning and/or procrastination on my part, I wound up at Walmart after the office closed at noon today. No choice; must-have items for tomorrow. But I decided, hey, there's nowhere I have to be; I'd just relax, take my time, and roll with it.

There were three good omens to start the expedition. First, although a little icy, it wasn't the skating rink outside the forecasters had salivated about. (I think they actually wanted bad weather.)

Second, when I pulled into Walmart's parking lot, the first person I saw was a stocking-capped guy pushing matching, small-sized, periwinkle blue (my favorite color) bicycles, one with each hand. That put a huge grin on my face; he saw my delighted look and tipped his head to me. I'm sure there are a couple kids somewhere who will be just as happy if there isn't snow tomorrow.

And third, as I walked into the store behind a line of people, each taking a cart, I got the last one. I couldn't look behind me because I'm sure there were people following me into the store, and I would've felt guilty that I snagged the last cart -- and would've had the impulse to offer it to one of them. (Oddly enough, at the age of 56 I still sometimes feel like I'm faking being grown-up, and that really an adult should have the shopping cart -- not me.)

Omigosh it was crowded in the store. Like it used to be all the evenings and weekends in December leading up to Christmas. They had all the registers open -- they'd even dragged out a worker with his hair dyed in a pink fringe around the edges; you know that had to hurt. The entire huge, open space in front of the registers had lines of people with carts snaking through it. What a lovely display of conspicuous consumption! (You have to understand -- I live in Elkhart, Indiana: unemployment capital of the country. Times are hard.)

And the people watching was, of course, spectacular. From the overheard snippet of, "If you don't behave, you've going to have Christmas privileges taken away"; to coming upon a young lady who had found the best spot in the store -- tucked away in the book section, sitting on the floor reading; to being in the check-out line between two different groups of Spanish-speaking people feeling like I was in a foreign country.

As I left, for the first time in I don't know how long, I neglected to put my cart in one of the corrals. I was a little scared to take the time because the lot was so full of cars lying in wait for my space, and the nearest corral was quite distant. So I abandoned the cart to its fate. I'm feeling a little guilty about that. Hopefully Santa missed the incident and it won't topple me onto the naughty list.