Sure you do, I just went on and on about how shitty my old chair was.

Well I have now given a name to the new recliner. I call it the �magic bullshit theory.� It is because mysteriously, since day one, it has a tendency to lean back and to the left.

Back and to the left. Back�and to the left.

Ok, lame joke, let�s move on.

Well today was the day of reckoning. The day I have made mention, on several occasions, of finishing my Christmas shopping and paying my bills. All things I can do at the �wonderful� world of Wal-Mart.

Remember how I mentioned this could quite possibly be the entry that will be the bitch fest to beat out all bitch fests. That I suspected my trip to Wal-Mart would be filled with enough aggravations to fill out an entire entry with.

I must be fucking psychic because that�s exactly what happened.

Now to equate Wal-Mart as being hell on Earth doesn�t quite do it justice. This is more like the waiting room to Hell, only it�s the waiting room meant for the rednecks of the world. See even evil bastards can�t abide being in the same room as a redneck, hence why there is a separate waiting room.

I don�t know about all Wal-Marts, but this one in particular is redneck heaven. To give you an example I actually heard this said by someone in the store while shopping and not meant to be a joke.

�If you are gonna gettit, gettit, but I got ones of those some�ere yonder.�

Now before I get ahead of myself, let me start this �tale� from the beginning.

Being one with my night owl tendencies I decided my best chance at hitting Wal-Mart was to stay up all night and just go early morning. This would, of course, effectively bring my �bullshit meter� down to a low tolerance.

I figure I�m self destructive like that.

Ah but to make up for this fact I went dressed as if I was expecting a random metal concert to burst out of nowhere. Donning my new, and early Christmas, clothing I had received because I�m just that damn good. This consisted of a pair of black thick material slacks with cargo pockets on the side, and one vibrant red long sleeve button up shirt that fades to black on the bottom. A screen print shirt with flames up the front and a white dragon interlaced with the flames. Add on my oh so shiny double chain wallet, black shoes, and my hair slicked back in a long pony tail and I was stylin and profilin!

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

*cough*

Sorry.

I came prepared for this shopping/bill paying trip. I had all my bills pre-filled out, stamped, and return address written out. I carried a spare pen on me, a packet of stamps, and a list of all the gift ideas I had. Checked and double checked to make sure all that was on me along with my cash and my bank card, which I would need both of.

I was leaving nothing to chance. Still this is me we are talking about, as prepared as I may be, shit was still going to happen.

Game plan in mind, I was on a mission. So the first thing I do when I walk into Wal-Mart�hit the in store restaurant.

What, it had been more then fourteen hours since I had eaten anything substantial other then a god damn Yoplait Whips.

Mofo Yoplait Whips.

Setting any sense of reasoning aside, I walked into in to the restaurant intent on a double cheeseburger and some fries to feed my need. Only the guy behind the counter just couldn�t seem to get my order straight. How hard is it to understand something as simple as �double cheeseburger meal deal�?

Apparently it�s the equivalent of rocket science to this guy.

ME: I�d like a double cheeseburger meal deal please.

Cashier/idiot savant: Two cheeseburgers?

ME: No, double cheeseburger meal deal.

Cashier/idiot savant: Ok, two double cheeseburgers.

ME: No, not two of anything. Just one double cheese burger meal deal and that�s it.

I know it�s strange to be ordering double cheeseburgers at eight in the morning, but I�ve been up all night. I�m exempted of this rule in this case.

If my life was a novel this would be what you call foreshadowing. A shitty novel, yes, but that is beside the point.

Seeing as I know how clumsy I am, I was very causes in the restaurant. Cheeseburger with multiple condiments and a brand new screen print sure, oh yeah that�s a recipe for disaster. So I took it off and set it aside so if I do manage to drip anything on me it will only be on the t-shirt underneath. This will then be covered up by the pimping shirt so no one knows I�m such a messy pig.

Oh yeah, style with substance. I got my shit together. That or I�m becoming paranoid about my crazy bad luck as I grow older.

Now I�m going to break down all the minor annoyances through out the actual shopping in two simple sentences to speed things along.

Helpful Wal-Mart employee right there when I don�t need them, never there when I do.

Fellow X-mas shopper could you kindly stop staring at random objects with mouth agape and move your cart, it�s blocking the entire aisle.

Now the plan is, for payment wise, I was going to use the cash for the money orders and my card for the gifts. Only it didn�t work out that way. First off I got a Timex watch for my mother and they make you pay at the jewelry counter. It was so packed there was hardly a place around the counter that wasn�t packed full of bodies. So the idea of standing there while they approve my card with a bunch of pissed off people waiting to purchase there trinket didn�t sound fun to me.

No big deal, I�ll take it out of the cash and just withdraw some extra money from my card. No big deal.

Is it wrong of me that I want to pimp slap my past self?

Finally I hit the register to purchase the rest of my gifts. While entering my pin number into the machine I asked for the remainder of my balance to be given to me in cash. For some reason a simple sentence like that had the cashier staring at me like a deer caught in the headlights. Just before I asked her why she was looking at me like that I see an extra question on the card reader.

Would you like cash with this?

Oh, that may explain the look then. They are probably just used to the register telling them �so and so gets this much money back� and that�s it. The problem is this option only allows me to take out cash in increments of twenties.

Um, but I need cash back that isn�t devisable by twenty.

Being the nice guy I am I didn�t argue this fact. Mostly because there was a line of six people with very packed carts behind me. Six people who I wouldn�t put past having pitch forks and torches handy for moments like this. So I just took what cash I could and moved on to the service counter, hoping I could get what I needed from there along with my money orders.

There was only one cashier working at the service counter so I had no choice to get inline. This wasn�t so bad because I beat two other people out to be third in line, making the line five people deep for one cashier.

I make this obvious to you since, as I came to found a little later, it wasn�t so obvious to this little old lady. I caught a glance of her walking over to the service area, look over the long line and the one cashier, and then ignore it all and walk directly up to the counter and begin talking to the cashier. As if none of us aren�t impatiently standing there waiting for our turn.

Oh what the fuck old lady, don�t even bother asking if it�s cool that you cut in front of everyone. Obviously your shit is so much more important then what we have. After all the rest of us stand a much better chance not being six feet under ground in ten years. So go ahead and ignore the line, I don�t think anyone of us would mind that. Unfortunately I can�t say the same about my nickel plated friends Smith&Wesson.

BLAM BLAM! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

Ahem..sorry�got a little out of hand there.

Anyways.

I don�t know what the requirements of becoming a Wal-Mart employee are, but I�m guessing simple math isn�t one of them. You see I had five money orders I needed for all my bills. Five separate numbers, $20, $40, $50, $70, and $100 dollars. Each one I said slowly giving her time to type each one before I gave her the next money order.

So did I get the money orders that I wanted? I�ll answer that for you, no.

This is what I got instead: $20, $0.40, $40, $70, $100.

Um first off why would I get a money order that is less then the price of the money order itself? I really didn�t get an answer from her on that one or how she could fuck up two of the money orders. A few minutes later, after the manager was called over, I finally got the money orders I originally asked for. Not wanting to be in the way, I stepped aside and asked the manager if she could get me the cash I needed from my card. I figured someone in charge should know how to do this.

I thought wrong.

After I asked her if she could take a small sum of balance off and give it to me in cash. Her eyes widened and I could sense a deep fear in her as if we where in a corn field and I was the flying saucer ready to beam her up for this week�s anal probe. She quickly stuttered out, �I can�t do that� and moved a fast as possible away from me without starting a riot.

Ok, that was weird.

I just ignored that strange scene and filled out all my money orders so I could do a quick drop off on my way home. I figured I could do the trick I do at Meijer when they can�t give all the money I need from my card. Buy something small in another lane and ask for the rest of the money there.

So I grabbed the first thing I saw that I even wanted, a packet of Juicy Fruit, and jumped into the empty express lane. Once again I asked this cashier if I could get so much back in cash with this purchase. She gave me, I swear, an identical �they�re coming to take me away� look as the manager did.

Did they teach that fucking look during training?

So she blathers something incoherent and runs to another manager who happened to be in the lane behind her. After a few words I now know which manager teaches that �I think someone just shoved a pine comb up my ass look� because she had it perfected.

Turns out unless it�s a divisible of twenty, I can�t get cash back.

The entire time I�m hearing this I�m thinking �yeah, but Meijer could do it assholes.�

Finally I�m all fucking done with my shopping. All that is left now is to wait for the bus to come pick up my ass. So I go out to the waiting area and sit on one of the empty benches under the heater. Hoping that heater counter acts the cold breeze that comes every time the doors open. Which not only happen all the time, but even if no one was even near them they would stay open forever. I was getting so cold that I was literally bitching in my head at these doors.

Do not enter through these doors.

Well good idea fuck nuts since it�s the exit, but here�s an idea. If you really don�t want people entering the store through the exit doors. Take the god damn motion sensor off the outer side of the doors. You know, kill off that urge for people to �rebel against the man!� I�m fairly certain even these country bumpkins can understand closed doors=can�t get through.

FUCKING CLOSE ALREADY YOU SUCKY DOORS YOU!

When ever the doors where open I couldn�t feel the heat from the turbines-o-heat above. My fucking lord these things where huge and so industrial looking. I wasn�t sure if I was getting actual heat from them or radiation poisoning. They looked like they belong in a war torn country heating a family of twenty in a space fit for six people.

I�m saying they looked ugly as hell and quite possibly could kill me if they fell.

Unlike Meijer with there nice looking built in heat ducts that mesh well with the surrounding atmosphere.

I�m also saying Wal-Mart can bite my ass; I�m going to Meijer exclusively for now on.

Sitting on the bench further from the front doors was this little, quiet old man hunched over and lost in his thoughts. So when the bus got there and I could see from his position he wouldn�t be able to see the bus, I asked if he was waiting for them too. Turns out he was so I let him walk ahead of me so he got on the bus first, don�t want to leave an old man standing in the cold while I�m standing there paying my way.

Well I end up being the one standing there as the old man pays his way. And here comes the freaky part of this. His voice and the way he talks, I swear to Christ, he sounded like he was the illegitimate child of Droopy Dog and the Rain Man. I didn�t want to insult him so I fought hard not to bust out laughing. It wasn�t his fault he had that Droopy Dog quality to his as he repeated things he didn�t need to repeat.

When we both finally took our seats, I looked over and could see he was struggling to get his wallet in his back pocket. As nice of a guy as I am there was no way I was helping him with that. Contact with old man butt, I�d rather set my hand on fire�again.

Finally he gets it out of there then he does something I haven�t seen done outside a casino. He puts his hands out in front of them and rapidly flips them up and down rapidly several times.

For those of you who are not aware of this fact, cashiers at casinos do that anytime they handle any money. It�s to show the camera that they haven�t palmed any of that money.

So I am wondering does he do this to make sure he didn�t just five finger a ten spot from himself?

And that is the end of my lunatic adventures into Wal-Mart three days before Christmas.

Next year I�m just going to eat a ton of nails and then eat some laxatives.

It would be faster and less painful that way.

It's about time - Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2004
An Honor for Chrome - Friday, Feb. 20, 2004
A great loss - Monday, Oct. 20, 2003
a terrible announcement. - Tuesday, Sept. 09, 2003
Chrome speaks: - Friday, Sept. 05, 2003