A March of Shame in the Line at Walmart: A Parody

The BBQ Pit
1

Ok I’m only here to get a couple things: tape, batteries, windsheild washer fluid, tacks.
Damn this place is crouded, it’s the middle of the day on a fucking Wednesday. sigh the line is huge. All the lines are huge, and the damn register by the garden entrance is fucking closed. Shit!
I guess this line is as good as any, I’ll just stand behind this old guy with no hair

Price check for register 3, Price check.

Oh for Crissake, this is going to take for ever…

1 minute

CoughCoughCough

Good God, I can fucking smell the freetos on that ladies breath, I think I’m going to vomit.

2 minutes

look over a couple isles…

Is that my ex-girlfriend from highschool? She looks kinda good. gained a little weight, but not bad…

Price check for register 3 price check

Another fucking price check, what the fuck is going on here? There’s five more people to go before me… this older guy in front of me has something indistinguishable growing on his head…yuck.

CoughCough*[more-guttural]Cough*

3.5 minutes

That poor lady, the battery is running out on her electric shopping cart/wheelchair…Isn’t someone going to help her…Damn I am going to be so late if this line doesn’t hurry up…Is that lady with a wig and deep purple jogging suit staring at me?

“Out doing some Christmas shopping?” large coughing middle-aged lady says.

In-head sarcasm: Yeah I’m buying tape, tacks, and windsheild washing fluid as gifts

“No, just picking a couple things for the house,” I said with a dash of anxiety…

5 minutes

*Ok the old guy is writing a check now, I better get my wallet out…
puts hand on ass WHERE THE FUCKS MY WALLET!!!

SON OF A FUCKING BITCH IT’S IN THE FRIGGIN CAR!!!SHIT!!!*

…Drops everything on the counter and storms out…

…walks all the way to east bumfuck to car…
…FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!!
I dropped my keys along with all my other shit on the counter…BACK IN SIDE!!!

BIG SIGH I feel slightly better now.

2

I’m kinda confused. What are you parodying?

3

Lost me too. This was more a rant than a parody.

Walmart does suck, but ya can’t beat those prices!
Gah.

4

I can’t help but wonder if the guy in front of you was a lost greeter.

5

Well parody may not be the best word, it is more of a burlesque type ridicule of what can happen in line at walmart during the holiday season. And let me tell you when I was leaving it was an exercise in patience and tolerance to not go off on the 17 year old cashier dangling my keys in front of my face when I went back in to get them. She was wearing one of those little half smiles and giving the you are an impatient dickhead look at me. If I was two I would have thrown a tantrum…UHHG!!!

6

I have a theory about the price checks during the holiday season.

I remember seeing a news show about stores that post sales prices and then deliberately don’t change them in the computer.

Having worked at a place I’ll call J-Mart, I have witnessed that during the holdiay season when everyone is full of Christmas spirit, the social ramifications of a customer requesting a price check are harsh. Everyone behind the customer sighs, glares, mutters, and sometimes make threatening gestures. The price check is unneccesarily long. At J-Mart, we had extra guys working each area of the store at all times during the holidays, one of which was supposed to be dedicated to answering all of the price check calls. I have a dark suspicion that they were told not to be in a hurry about it because if the item is ringing up less than a dollar above the “sale” price, often the customer will forgo the price check, and the extra few cents in order to avoid the Evil Eye of the customers waiting behind him, knowing that the price check would include an interminable wait. Thus, the store has earned higher profits.

And then there’s always the woman who is wearing designer clothing and diamonds the size of bottle caps who insists that the can of beans is ringing up five cents more than it should, and will feel justified in making the 13,235 people in line behind her wait a half an hour until her suspicion is confirmed. (I once got in trouble for taking a quarter out of my pocket and giving it to a lady bitching about a .05 overcharge, and telling her to keep the change. It had been a long day.)

7

I feel no shame in making 250 people wait behind me at Wally World or any other busy store while I get a price checked. It ain’t their money I’m using, it’s mine.

On the other hand… I feel for you.