The Ugliness Therein.
There were two shopping carts in the aisle at the front of the store, one inside the other as they are designed to do to save space in the cart corral. In a hurry and thinking that they being out front was handy, (as Lavon would say), I tried to separate them by just pulling them apart. I pulled and pulled, even to the point of bending over and grabbing a handle in each hand pulling hard using all my strength. No luck. Finally I realized that the little child seat belt latch was hung up, holding the carts together, and was able to release the two carts. Grabbing the first one I took off, trying to hurry as I always do when shopping Planet Wal-Mart, which is a feat in itself due to the sear number of “Walmartens” in the aisles.
Shopping carts were originally designed for shopping. However, I’m sure the inventor never foresaw what his creature could do to the human psyche, at least to someone like me, unless of course he was sadistic. Take the wheels for instance. They’re made of hard rubber, but for some mysterious reason the one I always select is flat on one side. What’s up with that?
Now, while some may love the “Clanky,clanky noise that a “Flat on one side wheel” makes, but to me, it’s not only unnerving, but it frightens children too. Today I’ve not only selected a cart with a flat hard rubber wheel, but the right front wheel spins around and around while rolling, plus the cart pulls to the left. I look back at the entrance, thinking I would try to swap the cart for a better one, but the 40 or 50 Martens jousting for carts terrified me more that the cart I had. I truly wish I had BJ’s courage when I come to this place, but alas, it’s not to be.
So while clanking down the aisles, bumping into the carts on the left side, getting hard looks from mothers with crying kids, I come to two ladies, (that are wider than their carts), talking over their screaming brats and blocking the aisle. I stand there trying to look pleasant waiting for one or both of them to realize that I needed by, but that was not happening. I could feel the horns growing out of my head, but then I realized how much of a coward, a non-confrontational type, that I am. So I cowardly turn around and go down another aisle.
Store aisles are not for socializing. That is an uncivilized cultural anomaly and when you add the hated cart or carts to that along with their snotty nose brats, you create a situation in which I truly wish I was not such a coward, and could just crash through them, saying as I do so that, “You are in my way ladies, move over and wipe that kids snotty nose while you are at it, I’m coming through.”
I only go shopping when I have to get something. To me it is a necessary task and I want to do it with speed and efficiency. Shopping aisles are for people like me, to find what they I need, throw it into that “thing” called a cart and rush to the checkout counter, clanging all the way, and pay for it. Those aisles are not the village square where you congregate and gossip, while sipping your 32oz. sugar drinks, all the while blocking the aisles for real customers like me. Yeah, you know who you are.
After paying for my goods, I race to my truck so I can rid myself of that left turning, clanging, front wheel spinning cart, only to find that several other carts have broke loose from the corral and had congregated around my truck. That had to be the case, because no self respecting person would just turn his cart loose on its own in that parking lot, with the chance of them banging a car or two. Surly that didn’t happen. Who would ditch their cart rather than walk 5 feet and corral it? Tell me that you are not that thoughtless or lazy. Well, I may be wrong about that, because at any given time of day at Wal-Mart, you will find about a hundred carts roaming loose around the parking lot bumping into vehicles. If the carts were just breaking loose, then Wal-Mart would have found a way to keep them corralled. No, I suspect it is people like those two ladies that block the aisle. Anyone that inconsiderate would not stop at leaving their cart where it stopped.
Just saying…
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