It has been, for me, "The Place That Shall Not Be Named".
A bridge too far. A place my pride and self respect wouldn't allow me to go. A sign of defeat, of hopes and dreams crushed forever. A final surrender to all things mediocre and the end in the belief of a better life in our future.
Walmart.
The boyfriend has no such problem; he goes all the time.
But me? Just couldn't do it. I'd only been to one once, back in LA. It was in a Third World section of the Valley and it was crowded, cluttered and filthy. Never again, I said. "But it's different here" the boyfriend would say. "It's not what you think..."
Even when they opened two mammoth stores recently, within spitting distance of each other, I refused to go. There were few fates worse than death, but becoming a "Walmart Shopper" was one of them.
But all that changed yesterday. I popped my Walmart cherry.
The boyfriend was doing well and in need of a little retail therapy and was off to Walmart. He was on a quest for cheap dinnerware. We have a lovely set of fancy china that we spent a fortune on years ago when we imagined ourselves doing all kinds of entertaining in our house in the hills. It's been used exactly twice. For everyday use we had used a set of vintage plates and bowls the boyfriend picked up ages ago, a beautiful 60's design from the pre-microwave era. That became a problem in time, and the fact they were probably made of asbestos and painted in lead made using them seem risky. So for years we've relied on a motley assortment of plastic plates we've accumulated. A lot of them have Christmas designs since we received them as a plate of holiday cookies from the old neighbors and never bothered to return them. It's always been a particular irritant for the boyfriend. But now he was off to Walmart in search of cheap Chinese dinnerware to solve the problem and he asked if I'd like to tag along.
And I said yes. Not sure why really. Maybe I've just lost the will to live.
We went to the newest one, nearest our house. As huge as it looks from the street, it's overwhelming once you pass through the doors. You could easily put 6 or 8 football fields in that building. And then you see all the... stuff. Oh my God! It has... everything! You could probably live your entire life under that roof without ever having to leave. And I wouldn't be surprised if people do. Who knew you could find a bag of lettuce and a big screen TV all in one place?
We went straight to the dinnerware section and quickly found a design we liked. A sixteen piece set for $40! We'll take two! And that's how it works at Walmart, they hook you with the prices. You come in for tube socks and leave with a 52" plasma screen. If you can just forget about all the Chinese slave labor and sweatshops and focus on the savings, you catch Walmart fever. And we weren't immune. Soon we were surfing the entire store, finding all sorts of things we didn't know we needed. Look! Coconuts! Who the hell eats coconuts in Bakersfield? Who cares! At these prices, stock up! Soon we had the oddest assortment of merchandise I'd ever seen in a shopping cart, underwear and frozen dinners and God knows what piled on top of the boxes of new china.
So overall I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Almost all my preconceptions were proven wrong. All except the people. The people who shop there fit every stereotype of Walmart Shoppers. I've never seen so many fat people in scooters in my life - it was like a Tea Party convention.
And the staff aren't the brightest stars in the heavens. We were at checkout and a slack-jawed drone was mindlessly scanning our merchandise and dropping it into the carousel of bags. Neither of us we're paying much attention and the boyfriend had already swiped his card. She totaled the order and looked up with her dead Walmart eyes...
"That's $108. Thank you for shopping Walmart."
Imagine that! All that swag, and china too, for only $100!
Wait a minute. That made no sense. The china alone was $80. We were halfway to the car when the boyfriend whipped out the receipt to see what was up and noticed she had never scanned the two boxes of china. And now we found ourselves at a real moment of truth. Do we return to the store and point out the error? Or do we go to lunch?
Hmmm... that was a tough one.
