Porn Alert

We were in Walmart looking for the drinks we usually offer to bring for the annual Thanksgiving hullabaloo. Just the usual beer, wine, soda, and tea.  That means that Zane and I take our time and look around, since Dad isn't prodding us to hurry up before we spend more money.  

"Mom!! Come quick! There's PORN!!!"

Really, what do YOU hear about while shopping with your kid? 

My first thought regarded the idea of porn in a Walmart as completely ridiculous, before I remembered the vibrators I had just seen in the pharmacy section.  

That thought made me approach Zane cautiously, so as to respond appropriately.  It doesn't do to completely freak out in front of a teenager; that is the entertainment that keeps on giving for years.  

And indeed, there was porn.  The word was right there on the cover of the magazine, there for all kids who can read to see.  It was actually right at the four- to six-year old eye level.  I'd just walked right past it, because the sexualization of guns in America gives me hives.  

But Zane did.  And he wanted to know about the porn.  Which wasn't really porn, just a word on the cover of a magazine designed to make the reader buy the magazine and take it home to peruse in the privacy of their own home.  The word 'porn' is like the bell Pavlov used to get his dogs to salivate, particularly people who don't understand that they are being played.  So my son and I had a lively discussion about propaganda and advertising and classical conditioning, and how they all play a role in capitalism.  

I'll probably get a phone call from the school on Monday.  I am actually looking forward to explaining the entire situation.

Also, dear Walmart, where I tend to shop often because you are less than a mile from my house, Please put all the gun magazines ABOVE waist level, so the babies are not exposed to such violent content.  Thank you.

Don't Squeeze the Free Knives, Please!

I am a lazy shopper.  In fact, I'll just pop that stereotype that all women love shopping right now.  I hate shopping.  Okay, if nobody else was in the store and everything was in my size and just the right colors, I might like shopping.  But I intensely dislike crowds, I don't like the color orange, and I am constantly frustrated by the fact that, in a city where the AVERAGE woman is at least a size 20, all of the clothing racks are full of size...2.  So I would rather not shop at all.  If I ever win the lottery, I'm just going to hire a seamstress to come over and make my clothes.  Skip the middleman and help the local economy.  I'm a giver. (I'm also going to have someone come over and do my hair and makeup everyday, but that's for another blog post.) 

Source: someecards.com via Erin on Pinterest

But we need groceries, and stuff like shampoo and soap, so I have to go shopping.  Like every lazy shopper, I head to Walmart, because it is less than a mile from my house. A couple of weeks ago, I was wandering the aisles, looking for salsa, when a voice came over the loudspeaker.  I sort of tuned it out at first, but my brain caught a word or two.

"...free surgical steel knife..."

What? 

I stopped in my tracks to be sure of what I was hearing. Walmart was giving away knives.  One per customer, must be over 18.  Form one line single file over in the bakery section, no shopping carts, please.  I'd heard them announcing free samples of food items before, but this was a first.  I didn't catch whether they were steak knife-type knives or Ginsu knives or machete-type knives.  But the idea that knives were being handed out at the local Walmart was stunning.

Were they doing background checks to make sure that the people receiving these knives were of sound mind?  Did a free steak come with these knives, so that you could test the knives for their cutting prowess?   Were the knives meant to cut aluminum cans before demonstrating that they could still julienne fries?  The knives were surgical steel, did that mean that they were for surgery of some sort?  I don't think that Walmart sells autoclaves for sterilizing surgical tools.  At least I hope not.

And what type of person wants just one knife? If it is a steak knife, it's supposed to come in a set, right?  I would feel sorry for a solitary steak knife, sitting in a drawer all alone.  Most knives seem to come in sets, at least the ones for kitchen use do.  I don't suppose that they sell Bowie knives in a set, but you never know. 

What is the weirdest thing that you've ever heard announced as a giveaway in a store? Share in the comments!

The Walmart Curse

My husband and I had an argument heated discussion the other day.

What did we argue about?

What do most couples argue have heated discussions about?

Money. Well, money and the frequency of sex, according to the polls.

But we argued discussed money.

Larry says that I go crazy in Walmart. He says that I can't go in there without dropping over a hundred bucks. Even with a list, I come home with extra stuff.

So I am admitting it here on the interwebs so it's official and I will no longer have plausible deniability in the event of a future argument discussion:

My husband is right.

I can't help it.

Even if I do make a list, and even if I try hard to just get the items on the list, the Walmart curse strikes.

I see it, and then I remember that we don't have it.

Even if we don't need it, we suddenly must have it. And that too, and ooh, we definitely need that... And bam! There goes a couple hundred bucks.

And I can't forget Target. I spent so much money in Target one day that they sent me a thank you card. Of course, it was all stuff that I needed and had to have. It was so nice of them to remind me.

It may drive my husband crazy, but it bothers ME even more.

I should know better.

Stores are specifically designed to get you to spend money. That is their sole purpose for existence. We all know this. Every single store is laid out, from the number of items on sale to the number of carts in the front, to get you to a)spend as much time in the store as possible, and b)to get you to spend as much money as possible. Walmart is better at this than most, except maybe for Disney(Disney pioneered the field of behavioral engineering, even if their name wasn't on it).

I know this because I read a lot about the study of behavior and some of that research has involved sales and marketing. People worry about the government getting our money, and that's kind of stupid. They need to be more worried about stores like Walmart.

I know, for instance, that the reason there are so few employees checking people out at Walmart(and other stores) is because research has shown that the longer you are in the store the more money you will spend(because you will think of something else you needed).

The candy at the checkout is there BECAUSE children are impulsive, and parents will often buy their children things to shut them up. Nobody likes a screaming child, least of all a parent.

The milk and eggs are at the back of the store BECAUSE you will likely think of something else you need as you pass all the other aisles.

They throw that extended warranty offer in at the last second BECAUSE you've already committed to spending money, so you are more likely to say yes to spending more.

It sometimes bothers me that I am such a easy target for stores such as Walmart. Oh, and Target, as well. They know my shopping habits better than I know them myself. That kind of sucks.

Sometimes I start to feel like a lab rat, except there's no cheese at the end of the maze. But then I see something else I forgot that I needed.

Hey! It's on sale.

I Hate Shopping at Walmart

...I can't be any clearer about it. Why? Let me describe my experiences today. First I went to HEB, which is a grocery store chain that is local, or at least only in Texas. The place was crowded, but I did not have the slightest bit of trouble finding anything on my list, the sales people were friendly, and most importantly, nobody walked slowly in front of me with their cart and got in my way. I filled up the cart and walked to the cash registers. There were maybe twenty cash registers at the front of the store and EVERY single one of those registers had an actual live person ringing up groceries and another person bagging those groceries. I was out of there in record time, which was great. I left the store happy... until I got home and realized that I forgot paper plates.

Now, before all you "green" people start hollering at me for using paper plates, shaddup. I am the one who ends up doing the dishes pretty much every day. I LOATHE doing the dishes, but if I didn't they would sit in the sink until they grew legs, which oddly doesn't take as long as one might think. Paper plates are what keep me sane in the kitchen, and are therefore a tolerable evil until I win the lottery and can afford a maid and a cabana boy.

After I announced to my husband that I had forgotten the paper plates, he informed me of all the other things that he had forgotten to tell me to get the first time I went to the store. I offered to take Zane with me this time, which should be an indicator that I wasn't thinking clearly. But I only had a couple of things to grab, so I fully expected to be back in about twenty minutes. Another sign that I wasn't thinking clearly.

The parking lot wasn't too full, and I found a place that was close by. Zane didn't want to walk, so I carried him inside and put him into a cart. We began to move toward the toys, because Zane has to see the "choo-choos". Immediately, the slowest people in the store began to form a line ahead of us. I tried to go around the first one, only to be blocked in by another. These were otherwise healthy people, who for some reason were moving in a slow shuffling gait that is popular among zombies. I started to get irritated, but took a minor detour through the personal hygiene section...which was blocked by the four thousand people who were choosing their deodorants by reading the ingredients on every package. I clenched my jaw and did a U back out into the main drag. The shufflers had disappeared! Hooray!!!

We checked out the trains in the toy section and were able to get back to the grocery section. I got the five things on my list, plus pullups. Then I had to go ALLLLL the way over the garden section for lighter fluid, and I encountered the shuffling crowd again. I lost them in the small appliances section and made it to the lighter fluid.

Zane at this point decided that he needed to sleep. And he didn't want to sleep in the cart, he wanted me to hold him. I tried to bargain with him. I even offered him cash. No dice. I picked him up and tried to steer the cart, which suddenly had a broken wheel. I am shuffling, my cart is going the opposite of where I point it, and I finally make it to the registers.

Every Walmart store has a ton of registers. There must be at least twenty of them lined up all nice and shiny. Yep. They are all nice and shiny because there are only about two in use on any given day. I am not kidding--there were TWO registers open, each four deep with people in line. *sigh*

I pick a line that seems to be moving reasonably fast. The people in front of me, two women, are chatting while they put their stuff on the conveyor belt. They are moving incredibly slow, picking one thing up at a time, looking at it, stopping to talk, looking at the item again...

Zane is getting heavier by the second. He's also doing that thing where he leans back and jars himself semi-awake, which does not make him easier to hold. My left arm is on fire with exertion. I try leaning him on the bar of the cart, but this does not do a damn thing. Finally, the women in front of me finish putting all of the articles in their cart onto the conveyor...and someone in the Walmart management decides to switch out cashiers.

I seriously considering whether it would be worth it to punch the manager in the face, but ultimarely decide that it would be impossible to get a decent punch going while holding a sleeping child. Zane woke up as I was trying to steer the cart to the car. By the time I got out of Walmart and back into the car, almost an hour had passed, I was extremely irritated, and Zane was awake, rested and refreshed and ready to go.