blog entry

Confessions of a Wal-Mart snob

My mother recently accused my dad of being wrong about something.

“You’re not always right, you know,” she said. “You’re only right about 80% of the time.”

I found it interesting that she was able to attach a statistic to my Dad’s accuracy so I asked her how often she thought SHE was right.

“Hmmm,” she said, “probably about 40% of the time.”

“Well, I guess I should feel pretty good about my 80%.” my Dad said.

* * *

I personally think I’m right about 85-90% of the time (really...I do). But when I’m wrong…I’m pretty freakin’ wrong. And one of the things I’m working really hard at is admitting when I’m wrong, because Cool Broads always do.

Here’s one example:

I make an occasional trek to Wal-Mart to buy things that are always more expensive at Kroger. Now, I’d almost rather pull off my toenails than shop at Wal-Mart…but it IS less expensive and gas IS $4.00/gallon, so I have to cut back where I can.

But if I had my druthers…I wouldn’t set foot in a Wal-Mart. The reason…I always get the cart that has a wobbly wheel and shrieks every time I inch it forward, I always seem to run into someone else’s cart because the aisles there are too damn narrow, and the people at Wal-Mart sometimes scare me (yes, sometimes I do get bugs and stuff lodged up my nose due to it being turned up so high). I’m not sure who I think I am, but apparently I think I’m someone who should be shopping at Target instead.

Anyway, the last time I was there, the checkout girl scanned my wine (you didn't think I'd leave Wal-Mart without wine, did you?) and then stuck the bottles in a single plastic Wal-Mart bag. I made a mental note to be careful when loading my car because a single plastic Wal-Mart bag holding two bottles of wine is a potential disaster.

And what do you think happened as I took the bag of wine out of the cart to put it into my car? One of the bottles slipped through a tear in the bag, hit the ground, and shattered all over the parking lot.

The first thing I thought was, Wow, it seems like a lot of liquid in the bottle but on black asphalt it just disappears...but then my priorities quickly realigned and I thought, You’ve got to be kidding me.

I was livid. I marched back into Wal-Mart to get a credit for my $9 bottle of wine and to let them know that they’d better get someone out to the parking lot to clean up a mound of broken glass.

Because the broken glass was basically behind my back wheel, I couldn’t leave until it was gone. And as I sat in my car waiting for a Wal-Mart employee to come running from the store with a dustpan and broom in hand, I thought, Did I really think they would immediately send someone out to clean up the mess? Where do I think I am? The Four Seasons? I’m at WAL-MART…I’m can't believe I'm going to have to clean the glass up myself.

Just then two women passed by my car. They didn’t see me, but they did notice the glass in the parking lot and began to pick up the pieces. And before I knew it, the mess was gone and they were walking toward the store carefully carrying broken glass in their bare hands.

I felt like a jerk.

I should have picked up the broken pieces myself, but I was high up on my horse and still mad about my wine and muttering about how terrible Wal-Mart is. Then two Wal-Mart shoppers showed their true colors and unfortunately mine.

So, to all you Wal-Mart shoppers out there who I’ve been looking down my nose at…I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’m not too good to shop at Wal-Mart…in fact, sometimes I can lose my cool (but I'm working on that). And if I ever ram your cart out of frustration because I’m dealing with a wobbly, squeaky wheel, or aisles that are too narrow, or I've been spooked by the Wal-Mart greeter, please accept my apologies in advance and know that as a gal striving to become “that cool broad”…the journey can sometimes be a bit more difficult that I anticipated (especially when I’m sent home with one bottle of wine instead of two).

~tcb
www.thatcoolbroad.com