The Post-Thanksgiving Trip To WalMart

I'd love to tell a story about fighting off hordes of middle class housewives to get to the last Nintendo Gamecube. I'd like to share how I beat them off of my cart with a display Christmas tree. I want to explain how I put the truck in 4 wheel drive and drove over the grassy knoll, because the lot was so full, people were parking in the lanes too.
Sadly, none of that happened.

I slept 'til 9 o'clock. I took time out for coffee. I stared out the window at the cold grey sky, and meditated. Then I was ready to face the mob.

I put on some (gasp) make-up. For some reason, you get noticed more easily with make-up on. Since I'm only 5'4", I need all the help I can get. Red hair not withstanding, I just don't stand out in a shopping crowd. As I was applying mascara, I called to L; asking if he wanted to come with. I was expecting an eyeball rolling "no", but he jumped at the chance. So off we went to WalMart.

On the way, I guided him in a shielding meditation. I get bad in shopping crowds, too much bitterness and desperation around me. L gets worse. He hasn't had the years of practice I've had. So I taught him the mirror shield. It's a good, basic shielding technique. You surround yourself with mirrors facing outward. When dealing with crowds, you put an extra layer of mirrors around your head.

So, shields in place, we turned into the parking lot... and saw plenty of parking. "Bonus!" I thought. We drove down by the garden entrance, pulled into a parking space, and went inside. It was a copper top kinda day, At the door, we crossed paths with a pair of redheaded twines (purposeful misspelling -pervs B gone!) and their mom, also displaying the melacortin 1 gene. I spied at least 5 other naturals. Ahhh, it's good to have company. Enough about the redhead cluster phenomenon, though. On to the shopping!

The store was crowded, but not as crowded as the day after Christmas. We rushed to the electronics department. We couldn't get down the games aisle, it was packed. But that was ok. We had Matt, the WalMart guy to do our work for us. Because we had arrived so late, they were sold out of the Game Cubes. But that was ok. Matt had noticed one, and only one, sitting in the returns cart. He fetched it for us with a smile.
That's right. My son got the last Game Cube in the store! Muahahahaha. I didn't even need to hit anyone.
From there we hit the center aisle, snagged the Lion King Platinum Edition for $11, and breezed on down to the sports department. I tossed a bow and arrow set into the cart, saying, "My cousin will love this," so that L wouldn't know it was really for him. Then we were back in the garden department. We grabbed the 6 foot fiber optic Christmas tree that L had been lusting over, and threw in some wrapping paper and tape for good measure. Every checkout lane was open, and there was no waiting.

Total shopping time: 25 minutes.
Total amount spent: $180 (the game cube wasn't the kind that was on sale, oh well.)
Buying everything on your list without killing anyone: priceless!