Walmart people aren’t like us. They are strange and different and disturbing.
Now I understand why we have the gene for prejudice. All through life we are told not to judge people, to meet them on their own terms.
Yet it’s hard not to. We do it all the time. Why then does evolution equip us with this horrible tendency?
Walmart. It is good to fear the people in the blue vests. It is wise and proper that your blood run cold at the sight of the smiley face flair button on the purple vest.
My first encounter is with Cartboy the Obsessive. Cartboy’s job in Bizzaro Walmart world is to collect the carts from the parking lot and return them to the store for the shoppers to use.
It sounds simple, and it works fine at other stores. Cartboy the Obsessive though is granted a foul implement. He has what I can only describe as the Cartrain Engine. The Cartrain engine is a powerful device that allows Cartboy to push around an infinite number of carts.
What Cartboy does is park the Cartrain engine in front of the good empty parking spots. The he collects carts and attaches them to the Cartrain engine. He will not simply collect 50-60 carts and return them to the store. For Cartboy the Obsessive, nothing less than collecting every cart in the entire parking lot and assembling them into the ultimate cart train will suffice.
Of course this is an impossible task. The long-haired hippy Cartboy the Obsessive stares balefully at shoppers exiting Walmarts with their carts. He follows them to their cars takes their carts and attaches them to his 100 yards of Cartrain, and Cartrain engine.
Though I’ve never actually seen the Cartrain in motion, there is a statistically certain chance that it will be blocking you into your parking space when you exit the store.
I avoid Cartboy by parking in the extreme end of the parking lot, and begin the hike to the store.
The weather is fine yet when I enter I am hit by an inexplicable blast of air from the heaters.
As I enter Walmart Proper I am met by Smeagol the Greeter. Smeagol the greeter has aged far beyond the allotted lifespan of humanity, and he’s paid a terrible price for his immortality, doomed to lurk just inside the Walmart entrance, he derives the energy which sustains him by detaining, confusing and disturbing shoppees.
Smeagol the Greeter will always stand in the middle of the entranceway and position himself so that as he accosts a shopper, the entrance is completely blocked so that nobody else will be able to pass.
I wait in line to be accosted senselessly by this demon, and the family of four in front bolts in sudden panic. Stealing my nerve I approach Smeagol.
“Gut Afdernoon, Velcome to Valmart” he says in what seems to be a parody of a German accent. Either that or it’s his vampire voice. I’m not sure.
I smile and attempt to pass.
“Are you heffen duh Cheddar?” asks Smeagol catching me with his Gary Oldman eyes, black orbs.
"Umm no thank you, " I say attempting to move on. He pulls a cart out, blocking me.
“Are you heffen duh Cheddar?”
“No. Please. I just want to buy some Nicorrette. Can I go now?”
“No. No. no. Heffen duh Cheddar. Heffen duh Cheddar. Are You heffen duh cheddar.”
A couple tries to sneak by behind Smeagol, but his unnaturally attuned vision catches this and he turns.
“Yes. I’m Heffen duh Cheddar. Thank you,” I say and pass.
Besides the monstrous presences in the blue vests there are more horrors that await me in Walmart. Something strange happens to people there.
I’m confounded by Irving the Indecisive. Irving is moving his cart in a fashion which at first seems totally random, and is travelling with the velocity of a beached loggerhead. Get to close, and the random motion is clearly a ruse. He will inevitably turn the cart straight into you.
You can’t resign yourself to fate and politely walk behind Irving or Carry the Collider will smash you from behind with her cart.
At the same time you must avoid the Aisle Thrusters. These are the people who lurk at the end of the aisle waiting for someboyd to walk by. As they do, the hurtle their cart out of the aisle and into you.
Avoiding these people I take the dark forbidden paths through vaccums and cleaning accessories towards the pharmacy. I smile as I make good time.
Then of course I run into a Thumper. The Thumper’s job is to walk towards you in the opposite direction. He will then run straight into you.
After bouncing off a Thumper I’m back in a main aisle. It’s a clear shot, with only a few of the nameless I-have-stopped-randomly-and-without-purpose-and-am-standing-inexplicably-in-the-middle-of-the-aisle types.
Then a true horror. I encounter THOSE WHO MUST WALK THREE ABREAST. There is nothing to do but back up and duck into an aisle with these folk.
Then I’m at the Pharmacy section which is full of the Loitering Lost, doomed to wait out entropy for their prescription to be filled.
The Nicorrette case is of course locked, so I must wait on line with the Loitering Lost for and indeterminate but endless period as they again ask if their prescriptions are ready.
I inform the blue-vested troll behind the counter that the case is locked, and she grabs the Intercom-that-once-worked-but-has-been-broken and attempts to invoke the Keymaster who is apparently being detained on some other plane of existence.
I can almost bend the plastic door on the case to get the Nicorrette out. Almost. Instead I sit on one of the chairs of lifting on display which help people who can’t stand up on their own by being so uncomfortable they never want to sit.
The Keymaster arrives and I grab my Nicorrette 4mg replacement box, and sprint for the registers.
Somewhere out there lurk the Nazgul on their motorized disability scooters…
…But I dare not say more about them.
As a veteran of Checkout Lines of Unending Detainment, I got on line, and ignore the false please of blue-vested orcs who attempt to decieve me with such transparent lies as “Aisle 17 is free. She can take you right away.”
Oh yeah! Like I’m going to fall for that. You may think that the trick is obvious. By the time you get to aisle 17 that line will be longer than the one you are on. But it hardly ends there. At aisle 17 your will be informed the aisle 64 is open. At aisle 64, it is aisle 21.
Aisle 21 will indeed be open. Nobody will be waiting in line. This is because that aisle is closed and there is nobody working checkout in Aisle 21.
So I just wait out my sentence in aisle 9. They change checkout workers, have management conferences, interminable price checks, train new workers on how to change the blue printing receipt rolls and all the usual stuff.
Eventually it’s my turn, and I swipe my card 30-40 times through the Credit Card Reader of Unsighted Obstinacy, collect my receipt, get in my car, avoiding Cartboy and return to planet Earth.
