I left my house to go to the grocery store on Saturday night. It was flurrying at my house, but as I drove further north I entered a major blizzard. I remembered that I needed a few non-grocery items and decided to go to Target. When I got there, it was so snowy that I could not see across the street to Winco. Crazy! Cars were sliding. These were white-out conditions. I don't mind driving in the snow, but in a mile or two, this had become a white knuckle drive.
I pulled in the parking lot at Target . . . and realized I'd left my wallet at home. Crap. Not only was I driving illegally in the crazy weather, but I couldn't buy anything that I needed to buy. With no other options, I headed back towards home.
Once I got home (which seemed like a good 4 hours or so later), it was still only slightly flurrying there. The white out conditions had disappeared again in only that short drive. I decided I was not going back in the terrible weather. I could go to Harmons, but I needed a few non-grocery items that Harmons wouldn't have. I decided I would just go the the Eve-Wal-Empire. Going to Wal-Mart is never a good idea. I always have a bad experience there, especially late on a Saturday night. I always justify going there because I think it will be quicker since it is the closest store to my house, but it's not quicker. I spend forever looking around because I never know where anything is and then it always takes an eternity to check out. Of course, this is what happened tonight, too.
I wandered the store forever. There were several things I never did find. Pistachios - I found no nuts in the entire store. Bubble bath - seriously, I looked up and down every aisle (twice) in the hair, shampoo, soap section. Waterproof kids gloves - this is one of the main reasons I chose Wal-mart over the grocery store because Molly needs some new gloves. I got her yet another pair of $1 stretchy gloves (which work great because she loses them at school), but no good play-in-the-snow gloves. There were other things I couldn't find, as well. I came home and after I put the grocery items away, I re-wrote my list for the next time I go to the store (the non Wal-Mart store).
The lady who checked me out was nice, I guess, but oh my goodness I was in the check-out line for 7 hours. First, the lady in front of me had her items separated into 3 different transactions. Then, something was wrong with her grapes and she had to go get another bag.
When she was finally finished, it was my turn. I asked the checker lady if she knew if they had any different kid gloves in the store. She said she didn't know. She then proceeded to scan my items and put 1 . . . single . . . item . . . in . . . each . . . sack (I had left my eco-friendly bags in the car). She moved at turtle speed. As she put each individual item in a separate bag, I stood patiently waiting for her to match bag-friendly items, spin that bag thing around and load up the sacks a little more. That was silly of me. Once she had loaded each of the 6 bags with 1 thing each, she paused, stared at me and said, "it looks like all these are full." Wanting to avoid any confrontation at the Wal-Mart, I stared back for approximately 2 seconds with a "Really?" look in my eyes and then took the bags off of the bag spinner thing. Sigh.
I finally made it home 400 hours later and although we have milk now, and bread, pancake mix, and toothpaste, among other things, I feel like I lost a small portion of my life that I will never get back. Sigh, again.
