A Real Wal-Mart Experience

Our local Wal-Mart is one of those big supercenters and since our “short” list ranged from transmission fluid to salad greens we opted for one-stop shopping.  We’ve been to Wal-Marts before, in fact, we go often when we’re on the road.  We’ve even spent a few nights in their front yard.  I cannot say, however, that they are my favorite place to shop.  I much prefer Target, but they’re not just everywhere like Wal-Mart.

Anyway, today’s experience was one to write home about.  Let’s start with cat food.  The Peanut likes a snack mid-afternoon.  He’s rather a picky eater--he won’t even eat tuna.  What kind of a cat won’t eat tuna?  He likes chicken flavored treats and of the 8 or so varieties of treats, chicken was the only flavor that didn’t come in the small package.  I don’t like to buy the large packages because they get stale and I end up throwing away more than he eats.  He got seafood this time.  All I can say is he better like it.

On to the automotive department.  Gene needed automatic transmission fluid for the hydraulic stuff.  He found the section within the automotive department called “automotive chemicals” with all the fluids--every fluid ever used by any car or truck ever made.  Well, every fluid except transmission fluid.  Just before giving up on his search, he decided to wander around the rest of the department.  He came upon oils--oils of all weights and probably colors.  A thorough search of the oil department revealed automatic transmission fluid.

While he was on the search for transmission fluid, I was on the search for a new laundry basket.  I like the mesh collapsable type; the oblong one, not the tall one.  The tall one is taller than me almost.  I found the overhead sign that directed me to laundry and storage.  There was a whole aisle of laundry baskets--all kinds of fabric collapsable kinds, kinds that hang on a metal frame and roll around the laundry room, and hundreds of plastic baskets in every shape, size, and color.  Well, everything except what I wanted.  Unlike Gene, I gave up and went on in search of a pizza pan.  As I wandered down the next aisle, I found my laundry basket tucked in between sterolite storage containers.

I found the pizza pans right away.  I wanted about a 12 inch pan to bake cookies on in the convection oven without having to turn the turntable off like I do with a regular cookie sheet.  My cookies are always too brown on one side.  Anyway, they had pizza pans, but they were huge.  They had several different brands, all huge--far too big for my oven.  The only 12 inch pan they had came as a set with a huge pan.  I refused to buy something I cannot use.

While I was in the kitchen department, I decided to look for a bottle brush.  Gene has started taking a gatorade bottle filled with green tea on the trail.  I wanted a brush to clean those bottles.  You know they didn’t have one in the kitchen department.  They had various sizes and shapes of brushes to scrub pots or potatoes, but not bottles.  I went to the baby department where I found bottle brushes, but they had some sort of sponge, that will probably never dry (how sanitary is that for the baby’s bottle), attached to the bottom.  I left the brushes hanging there and decided to look for what we called “changing pads” 30 years ago.  I hadn’t seen any among Ansley’s stuff and I thought she’ll need some. They were nonexistent (unless of course, they were in some other department, maybe hardware).  I gave up on brushes and pads.

On to the grocery department.  This at least was a little easier.  I found everything, including bottle brushes, tucked away next to the mops.  Gene washed his bottle using the brush after our short hike today and proclaimed it “first rate”.