Apparently today is old dude and screaming baby day at the Covington Walmart.  Oh, you didn’t get the memo either?  I never go to Walmart anymore for this reason.  Because I’m a genius, I thought I’d go to Walmart for groceries and Halloween candy, and of course, to help others.

I don’t know what it is about my adorable face that says “fount of knowledge,” but I’m going to make a name tag for myself that says “chief information officer” for when I’m out and about.  I was walking on an outside aisle when an old dude practically jumped out in front of me to ask my opinion on which iron he should buy.  Now, I don’t commonly walk around with my small appliance guide of Consumer Reports, but I did my best.  Old dude didn’t want to spend a lot of money, but he wanted a lot of features on his iron for some reason.  I guess he likes to iron, we didn’t get into his life history.  Since they didn’t have any Rowenta irons, I told him he would be fine with a Black and Decker model.   He thanked me, I went on my not-so-merry way to office supplies, to find there still weren’t any new colors of the new Sharpie pen.  I’m a pen horder and I love the new Sharpie pen, so what?  In the middle of office supplies I encountered screaming baby #1.  Made my way to women’s clothes to look for a Halloween t-shirt, couldn’t find one I liked, so I went to find oven cleaner.  Screaming baby #2.  I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve never cleaned an oven, so I didn’t know what to buy.  I bought Easy-Off Fume Free, since I’m prone to migraines sometimes triggered by scents.  Anyodor, picked up some Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and focused on groceries.

In the milk section there was mom and her screaming toddler who wanted chocolate milk.  For a minute I thought of opening some and giving it to the boy.  I decided against it and put skim milk in my cart.  I made it through a few more aisles without having to talk to anyone, then in the cereal aisle Mr. Old Dude #2 found me.  His wife sent him for oats and he didn’t know what to get, he was thinking oatmeal , I told him she probably just meant Quaker Oats if she didn’t say oatmeal.  Ladies, I learned many moons ago that you have to be super specific when you send your husband to the grocery store.  If you’re not specific, they will bring home beer and wine when you ask them to get drinks when you were thinking juice boxes and Coke.  Anyalcohol, I started to look for the new Honey Bunches of Oats: Just Bunches, ’cause this girl loves some Honey Bunches of Oats and the prospect of a box of Just Bunches gives me a thrill like when Oprah announces to her audience that she’s giving them all new cars.  I’m telling you, I’m a geek and it takes so little for me to be excited.  There were no Just Bunches to be found.  It was at that time I realized it’s probably not a good idea to say “oh hell no, where are the Honey Bunches of Oats-Just Bunches?  Damn communist store!” in front of a Walmart employee.  They look at you kinda weird after that.  I had one of my “did I say that outloud” moments.  I’m used to it, whatev.

While hunting for the right bunch of bananas (not too green, not too big that the kids won’t finish the banana,) I heard the best old dude dialogue ever.  Old dude yells across the produce section to his wife, “are we good on sweet puhtadas?”  She nods.  “How ’bout snap beans?”  She nods.  “Regular puhtadas?”  Wife was starting to get annoyed, I could see it.  This guy was yelling.  I remembered I hadn’t taken my medicine before I took Andrew to MDO.  I decided I needed to get out of there before I had an anxiety attack.  I didn’t even bring up the group of Latino men in the lingerie section or the Elvis impersonator-looking guy I saw walking around with a pumpkin.  He wasn’t in costume, just looked like the King.  A lot.  With a giant pumpkin.

Of course I couldn’t get out of Walmart without something weird happening at the checkout.  The cashier is bagging all my Halloween candy and asked if we have a lot of trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood and instead of saying, “no, I’m just hungry,” I said yes.  Told her some of it’s for the fall festival at the girls’ school, too.  There is a screaming baby at the next register.   She tells me her daughter is having a fall festival, too, when weird dude behind me chimes in about how he’s retired from making babies!   Oh, hell no moment #2.   This guy is not telling me about his vasectomy, oh wait, yes he is.  Did I ask for this info?  NO.  He’s telling me that after 4 kids, he got snipped and that was the end of “that train and now it’s better than ever.”  Oh, yeah, he said that.

This kind of crap only happens to me.  I’m serious.   I swear I’m not going back to Walmart.  And I mean it this time.