The Wally World Experience

I'd never spent a great deal of time at the local "Wally-World" before I had kids. I saw the commercials and equated it to some kind of warehouse store. After I had kids, and we moved into our current town, "Wally-World" seemed like a bit of a blessing. Instead of driving to four separate locations around town, I was able to get the tires rotated on my car, buy dog food and cleaning supplies, pick up chicken and veggies for dinner, even buy art supplies for my kids, without ever leaving the building. What could be more convenient? In theory, it IS convenient. In practice....not so much!

I'm not bashing the store. I don't know what the stores in other communities are like, so I can only refer to the one in my own. That being said, my first warning that this place was going to be a ginormous headache was driving into the parking lot. Is it just me or do people intentionally cross from the store to the parking lot in droves while moving in slow-motion and without ever looking to see if they are about to be mowed down by a passing car? If I didn't know any better, I'd think these people WANT to be hit. If they do happen to look in the direction of the car, they glare at the car's driver...as if to say "It's MY right-of-way." Technically, this is true. However, a shoving match between a car and a pedestrian is kind of a no-brainer....the car wins EVERY time. The pedestrian may be right...but he could wind up right AND dead. What's the point?

You get this great welcome from the 'greeter' at Walmart. I'm surprised Nordstrom hasn't gotten in on this (without the funky blue smock, of course). These greeters are so happy they could call suicidal people down from ledges. Human Prozac. So sunny you need sunglasses. Of course, in our local store, this is the last bit of positive human interaction you are likely to see, so you might as well suck it up like a sponge.

I'm not a snob. I simply believe ambiance plays a huge part in the shopping experience. Ambiance is achieved through cleanliness, proper lighting and attractive presentation. Also? It helps to provide shopping carts that are in operable condition with a minimum of rust. These things are in short supply at our Wally-World. Sticky floors, clutter and squeaky wheeled carts are not. I was tired of waiting until my youngest child was in preschool before shopping, because I was afraid she'd contract ringworm or lice if I put her in the little seat on the cart.

Our Wally's has a grocery store with the cheapest prices in town. I can easily save $100-$200 a month shopping there so, ambiance be damned, I vowed to buy my food there. It lasted for...the longest bloody six months of my entire life, at which point I fell off the Wally-World Wagon so hard I had road rash. I told my husband I'd rather starve and let our children go hungry than go back into that store. He nodded in sympathy, he'd been avoiding it for the better part of two years and couldn't understand why I put myself through it.

I kid you not, we once stood in Wally World with $800 to spend on outdoor play equipment and could not find a single salesperson to help us. After twenty-minutes of searching I found an employee who looked at me like I'd asked him to sell me a dead body. He looked around, shrugged and pointed across the store. "You could try aisle 5. Its not my department." Oo-kay. I'm not expecting a personal shopper, here, but a little assistance would be nice.

Forty minutes after arriving in the store, I had staked out the 'employee's only' swinging door, hoping to pounce on the first sales associate that emerged. Meanwhile, my husband was on his cell phone arguing with the Wally-World phone operator over how best to get an actual, real-live, sales person to meet him in Sporting Goods. Two hours later, we had finally obtained a swing set for our children. It would have been less work to build the sucker from scratch.

I'm not certain, but I have a sneaking suspicion that our particular store has some sort of 'fast-track' service (or additional discounts) for people who fall into specific categories. Those categories are as follows:

1. People who bathe less than once a week. (Would it kill 'em to try a little soap and water prior to entering the building? Are they allergic to cleanliness?)

2. Dental-ly challenged. (Maybe gap-toothed, rotting grills are all the rage now and I'm just out of the loop.)

3. Those with personal space issues. (The only person I want breathing down my neck in the soup aisle is my husband. No offense...and if you are going to 'reach' past me, make sure the deodorant is working, pal.)

4. Bad Mood Bears. (If you want to play bumper cars with your cart, cut me off, beat your children in the frozen food aisle, curse at me under your breath if you think I'm moving too slow, just do it on your time. I don't really see the point of treating the store like roller derby. I just don't. Also? I'm not going to react to your barbs, insults or bad behavior.)

5. Non-readers: Illiteracy and lack of basic math skills are almost a requirement to walk through the door...and hello! "Don't you got no more of those juice boxes?" is so wrong I don't even know where to begin. Oh, yes I do. DOUBLE NEGATIVE. Figure it out!

Okay, I'm done. Except to say this....I recently had a friend suggest that the reason Wally-World keeps the cigarettes at the front of the store is because by the time you emerge, even non-smokers need to light up just to calm down...makes sense if you think about it.....

Edited to add this: Apparently, I really am out of the loop. I just discovered this....Wally World <---click

Ungrateful Bank! Don't Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth!

According to CNN, Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, thinks our recession has reached it's end (not that I agree, seeing as how we'll have to hold onto our current home until retirement in hopes of actually breaking even when we sell it!) Apparently, my car loan company wasn't paying attention when Bernanke was speaking.

(oh wait, not to change the subject or anything but I must seriously be getting old. I actually KNOW the name of the Federal Reserve chairman. When the hell did that happen?)

Kevin took over bill-paying recently (for which I am forever grateful, I hate bill-paying) and he set up some of our payments to be automatically deducted from our checking account on a recurring basis every month. He forgot to check the bank's "recurring payment" box when he got to my car loan in the online bill-pay center. So, all the bills went out and he received an email confirming our bills had been paid and figures everything has been taken care of. The next time he logs onto our bank account, he sees that my car payment was missed. No big deal, he thinks. The payment is one day late, he'll just click the "pay" button and manually send off the payment. Worst case scenario, we get a late fee. We've never been late on a car payment, after all.

Update: (Yesterday, Four Days After The Manual Payment)

Phone rings at 8:25 a.m. and I answer...

Me: Hello?

Caller: (automated message) Good Morning. Please hold for an important message regarding your ABCD Auto Loan. Please hold......................Please hold..................Please hold................please hold. Our next customer service representative will be with you, shortly. (sure)

I nearly hang up. How rude is it to call someone and then keep them on hold? Finally, I get a living, breathing human being...one who (in my opinion) has potentially the worst job on the planet at the moment.

Rep: Mrs. Black?

Me: Yes.

Rep: Hello, ma'am. My name is Garvin Redahl with ABCD Bank. I see that you recently made your car payment. Is that correct?

Me: Um. I don't know. My husband took over the bills, recently. Probably.

Rep: Well, we at ABCD Bank would like to thank you for making that payment.

(what the hell? People are defaulting on loans across the continent, and this guy is busy thanking people for making payments instead of looking for the people who didn't? What gives? Is it supposed to be some reverse-psychology for the consumer? If you pay your bill the company will give you a brownie button for being a good consumer? Do I get to be the line leader at lunchtime, too? How 'bout a special bumper sticker that says, "My Rep says I'm Consumer Of The Month at ABCD Bank.")

Me: Oh. Okay.

Rep: Now, ma-am. It appears that your payment was late. We have received it, of course, but have noted that it was late.

Me: But you did get it, right? Is there a problem with the payment?

Rep: It was late.

Me: Oh. Late? Did we miss one? Do you need me to bring the account current or something? I'll get my checkbook. Can I make payment by phone?

Rep: No. You didn't miss a payment. Your payment was received after the September 12 deadline. Can you give me some idea of why you were late?

Me: Its the 16th.

Rep: Yes, ma-am.

Me: The payment cleared, correct?

Rep: Yes, ma-am.

Me: So I'm not late, now, correct?

Rep: Correct.

Me: You are calling to harrass me because I MADE a payment?

Rep: I need to know why you were late.

Me: Not a clue. My husband pays the bills.

Rep: So you have no access to the household finances?

Me: What? Yes, of course I do.

Rep: Oh. Well, are you aware that your next payment is due October 13th?

Me: Next month's payment is due next month? Imagine that.

Rep: Excuse me?

Me: Nothing. Look, what do you need from me, exactly?

Rep: I need to enter your reason for the late payment into my system and let you know that late payments will, in the future, result in a $35 late fee.

Me: I don't have a reason for being late.

Rep: Are you currently employed? Perhaps we could discuss other payment options for you?

Me: Look! You got the payment. We were a little late. THAT'S IT. My employment status has not changed.

Rep: Okay, ma'am. Before ending this call, I would like to confirm your contact information.

Me: Okay.

Rep: Could you please tell me your current mailing address and phone number?

Me: No.

Rep: No? You can't tell me what your address is?

Me: NO. I do not give out personal information over the phone. You just called my phone number so clearly you have a current phone number and my address hasn't changed recently so you should have that information. If you would like to tell me what address you have in your computer, I'll let you know if it's correct.

Rep: You do not want ABCD Bank to have your current address on file?

Me: YOU HAVE IT. Period. Next, you'll want my account number.

Rep: No ma'am. I don't need your account number. Is there anything else I can do before we end the call?

Me: How 'bout if you call somebody who hasn't paid you? Wouldn't that be a better use of your time? Maybe justify to your superiors that your presence in their organization is actually MAKING them money? Just a though, you know.

Rep: Yes, ma'am. Thank you for your time.

I have now discovered the real reason the American economy is going to Hell in a handbasket, basic human stupidity.

The Internet: A 4th Grader's perspective

Sophie got a pretty, pink Dell laptop for Christmas last year.(Considering what her daddy does for a living, the idea of her not being tech savvy is a little shameful, really). When it arrived, Kevin overhauled the darn thing, installing parental controls and additional security measures to keep her safe. Frankly, it was almost more of a hassle to Google "Nocturnal Amphibians" for a book report than it was to just drive the three bloody miles to the library and open up an encyclopedia. Fort Knox probably has less security.


In any event, over time, we've had to loosen up some of the controls to make the computer usable...assuming we ever wanted her to be able to visit anything other than the Disney site or Build-A-Bear site...we had no choice. As a result, she's been left traumatized by a million things I hadn't considered. Here's our current list....(I say current because its still in progress and, yes, she is totally monitored on the computer by her father and I, not to worry!):


1. Chupacabra: I'd never heard of this thing. Its some kind vampiric, hairless dog-like kangaroo that runs around killing farm animals. According to a Yahoo article, one of them had been caught in Texas, or so Sophie had heard. I told her it didn't exist and not to worry about it. She spouted off a few details about sightings, locations and descriptions of the Chupacabra. I asked her if it was really logical to believe this animal had migrated across continents and stolen into farmhouses across the globe and to date not a single scientist had identified it as a species. Kind of like the Loc Ness Monster or Big Foot. (I should never mentioned this. Now Sophie is really freaked).


2. 2012: This one started at school. Some kid decided it would be great fun to scare the crap out everyone under ten years of age. This idiot boy announced to everyone within hearing distance that the world would come to an end in the year 2012. Even the first graders had discovered how close we are to 2012. Sophie was freaked. I explained that throughout the history of mankind, quite a few people had discovered their "gift of sight" and then predicted an end date that never took place. She assumed I was placating her. "Trust me, Soph." I said. "If the world was going to fall apart during 2012, why would I bother to send you to school? There'd be no point in educating you. Frankly, we'd stop going to the doctor for checkups, too. We'd just sit around and eat bon-bons all day waiting for the end."

3. Tornados: I have to keep reminding myself that Sophie is still a kid. She doesn't yet completely grasp the idea of "distance". A category 5 tornado in Oklahoma is just as scary as one developing in our backyard. She's convinced it will get us if we don't dig a storm cellar. No amount of pleading with her makes a difference. Unfortunately, we live in a dusty town. When a breeze blows through it invariably leaves a spinning funnel cloud in it's wake (I call 'em dust devils). Sophie tends to look slightly green whenever she sees one and I can see her brain working. She's afraid its going to morph into a giant tornado.

I suppose we could drop a double-wide mobile home in our backyard to molify her. That's what my Oklahoma-based father-in-law did. He called it his 'nader-bait. The theory was that the tornado would be magnetically drawn away from his home and would suck up the double-wide, sparing the brick and mortar abode with the fixed foundation.

In the meantime, the list goes on...

Into Thin Air?

It was a dilemma. A big one. Do I watch the evening news with my kids in the room? I mean, the talking heads are dissecting the Jaycee Dugard abduction, discussing a little girl snatched on her way to the bus stop one morning. I didn't want to scare the hell out of them, after all. I remember being a kid, hearing about Jaycee Dugard and Michaela Garrecht. I hadn't slept for days after Michaela went missing. It wasn't as if she'd gone off to play and just disappeared. That would have been horrific enough. Snatching a child in broad daylight in a public place and driving off with virtually no regard for who might be watching? That was bold. That added a whole new dimension to the child predator scenario. Did I want my children to worry about kidnappers? Have them constantly look over their shoulders? Afraid to be alone?

It could happen to anyone. Anytime. The world became a whole lot scarier when I discovered that bad things actually did happen to kids, even if they followed the rules. The question, of course, was that I now have a four year old and an (almost) ten year old. I didn't want to keep them up at night worrying about elusive 'kidnappers'. What's a mom to do? I'll tell you what I did. I let them watch it. Every second of it. I hope it sunk in. I hope they walked away from the news program with a better respect for the world outside our front door. Because? Really? I'd rather have to eventually pay for their psychotherapy than pay private investigators to find them, or worse, pay for a funeral. No thanks. I totally understand why my mom always found it useful to instill a little fear in us.

As kids we'd been taught about stranger danger and not talking to people we didn't know. Never take candy from a stranger, don't go with a stranger even if he says he needs help finding his dog. Even if he tells you your mother is sick and he'll take you to the hospital to get her, don't go. Stay in groups. Always take a buddy. Guess what? None of that seemed to apply in Michaela Garrecht's case. Jaycee Dugard's either. They never got the opportunity to employ any of those warnings. All the rules that were supposed to keep us safe, rules we trusted to keep us safe, were out the window.

My kids may suddenly become afraid of the dark or afraid to play alone outside in our backyard after watching that news program...and you know what? I can totally deal with that. Its my job to keep them safe. Even if I turn them into nervous wrecks in the meantime. It really is just too bad any of us have to consider it as an option.

The whole thing is heart-breaking. What else is there to say?