New Thing #13: How do you like me NOW, Wal-Mart?

I got mad at Wal-Mart way before it was cool to be mad at Wal-Mart.

It must have been the mid-90s. Early high school for me. Ottumwa had been a Target-only town for years.  Then Wal-Mart arrived in ‘88, and everything there was 3 cents cheaper — a paramount virtue in southeast Iowa.

Everything there was also ridiculously hard to find. Other customers would pick merchandise up and then just leave it somewhere else when they decided they didn’t want it. And the layout was strange to me. Why were all the lawn ornaments way up front? Where were the art supplies? Directory signs hung from the ceiling above each department, but I never could see them. The shelves were stacked too high.

After wandering in the shadows for years, I decided to view the lay of the land. I don’t remember what I was shopping for, but, as usual, I could not find it.

So I started to climb the shelves. From the top, I’d finally be able to see the signs and find my way.

It didn’t occur to me to worry about getting caught.

The stocker lady saw me and stormed over, yelling at me to get the hell down. When I tried to explain why I was climbing, she wouldn’t hear a word of it.

Instead, she kicked me out of Wal-Mart.

“You can come back when you don’t climb things!” she said.

I couldn’t believe it. I was a good kid. Nobody kicked me out of stores! I never even got detention. And here was this mulleted grouch lady, talking like I was some kind of degenerate.

After that, I tried to avoid Wal-Mart. I never really felt good there anyway.

Until last night.

I was running an errand in the neighborhood, so I stopped into Wal-Mart with a singular goal: At long last, I would reach the top shelf and see the whole store.

Mission accomplished.

The antidote to stinky fruit lotion

In the realm of smelly bath products, herby is always better than berry.

For some other stuff I wouldn’t mind owning, check out this week’s column here.

Previous columns

• Alien boobies and a castle in the sky
• The world’s assiest sweet potatoes
• When dog owners are as bad as kid owners
• Living the game of Pitfall
  
• A dead baby’s spirit dwells here
  
• Bjorn is my imaginary friend
  
• The lowdown on getting high
  
• New England is our bitch
  
• How to pee in the woods
• Of severed heads
• The crazy-stupid line
  
• Sitting in water during a lightning storm
• My tragic Perseid poop out of 2009
  
• Doodie stops here
  
• Vrr-RROOOOMMMM, pussayhs!
  
• Retching for a view

Made for walking

Back-to-school shopping.

It’s here.

For reasons unbeknownst to God or man, I put myself through this every damn fall.

There are trips to Forever 21 and Wet Seal, and then maybe Target for the fancy stuff. I’ll see styles that have been off the runway and selling like hotcakes at red state Wal-Marts for like 4 years, and finally I’ll say, “Maybe I can pull off a tunic?” And I’ll buy some ridiculous tunic from Gadzooks or some other store whose apparel is as durable as a soufflee, probably so you won’t live long with the regret. And the tunic will survive maybe four mornings of schizophrenic pants-pairing to find a magical ensemble that doesn’t make me look like She Who Just Bought Her First Tunic, and then it joins the rest of my clothes in a mountain of failure destined for Goodwill.

Goodwill, unlike Gadzooks, can’t refuse an entire wardrobe of still-tagged clothing just because it happens to be soaked with my tears.

And here we are at Labor Day again. This is my latest folly:

I ordered these  last night from Zappos because my boyfriend has a bit of a boot thing, and I kind of love boots, too, but I need a flat pair because I walk a lot for work.

These looked OK.

And then I saw the shaft height: 21 inches.

Dems some boots.

I have no idea what to wear with them.

I image-Googled the make and model — “Gabriella Rocha Bree” — and this was the only picture of an actual person wearing them:

That’s Miley Cyrus.

I’m pretty sure she’s wearing a tunic.




The author gladly accepts any advice you are willing to bestow.


Related posts:

• Business casual
• The inventor of “stretch” jeans should be shot
• My boots have changed me
• The dude-ass
• I suck at dressing up
  

The saving reprieve of Mohawk Lady

So you all know yesterday was awful.

After leaving Betta to be cremated and throwing up a couple of times, I had to move on with life. Some things can’t wait.

Like deadline.

I ran to Costco to develop some photos I needed for an article (which now isn’t going to run this week, just one more Fuck This). I could barely form sentences or look the clerk in the eye. My hands shook over the photo order form. The deafening rattle of giant carts under a metal roof closed in around me while  Conan O’Brien quacked away in the display model TVs. My knees began to wobble in sensory claustrophobia, and I dropped my head onto the exclamation-pointed counter ads for photo print deals.

Fuck This.

I had a half hour to wait, so I stumbled over to a row of electric massage chairs. When you want to abandon your existence in Costco, this is your best hope.

Then Mohawk Lady walked by.

Mohawk Lady goes to lots of concerts in SLC and dances next to the stage. Her head is shaved except for the greying mohawk and a thin, meter-long braid wrapped in embroidery thread. She wears garish colors, has leather-tan skin and is impossible not to notice.

Celebrity sighting at Costco! It was my first non-traumatic moment of the day.

“Oh, how about these!” she exclaimed at the chairs. She was with a man, who said something to her and went on his way.

“El gusto es mio!” she called after him and settled into the chair next to me. “‘El gusto es mio.’ I just love that. Do you know what it means?”

I was in awe.

“‘The pleasure is mine,’” she said. “I think it’s just beautiful. It’s Spanish. Oooh, this chair!”

I summoned my powers of conversation for the first time that day. We sat in the massage chairs and talked a little bit about studying foreign languages, and I told her about teaching English in China. We oohed and ahhed at the various massage settings. Mohawk Lady goes by Rainy.

Then I told Rainy about Betta. When I welled up, she grabbed my hand.

“She discarded the physical. That’s the only thing we know for sure.”

I described the trip to the vet, the bloody sinus, the freakish, terrified honking noises that little Betta made when she came in the pet door yesterday morning with her eye poked out. Anytime I said the word “died,” Rainy corrected me: “Discarded the physical.”

“That’s the only thing we know,” she kept repeating. She assured me that Betta would have good company with Rainy’s discarded physicals: little Mecca and Hodgie and Kikipoo. Then she told me about the three human modes of action: creator, scientist and monkey.

I figured it out right away.

Then my film was ready and I had to return to Fuck This. It just kept getting worse. The pictures sucked, I calloused my throat trying not to cry through night shift, my dinner was ruined when the takeout box fell apart, and then I had to stay an hour late at work because of a shooting and stabbing on deadline. When I got home after midnight, my boyfriend and I sat at the kitchen table for an hour while tears dripped off our chins and into our glasses of whiskey. Then I woke up with the squirts.

But for a half hour in the motorized recliners at Costco, goodwill showed up under a mohawk and held my hand.

Thanks for the breather, Rainy.

Buzz in the ear

I don’t know a single person who is afraid of swine flu. At least officially.

Everyone I know is making fun of the media hysteria and Joe Biden and all the people who have been flooding hospital emergency rooms with their stupid colds.

But it’s harder to stay confident in the skeptics when you actually have snot running down your face.

This weekend I caught a touch of something. Head cold, tired, achy. I didn’t bother taking my temperature, but I also didn’t put on a bra for three days. That sort of thing.

Bra or no, you still have to run a few errands when you’re sick. You have to buy decongestant. You have get juice and popsicles. You have to rent Season 2 of The Sopranos.

Usually I just tell the clerks the truth when I’m sick and they ask, “How are you doing today?” “Ah. Little sick,” I say. It’s easier than trying to act friendly and alert when all my efforts are focused on just staying upright. And then they can goop on some Purell and feel better about the whole thing.

I tried that first this weekend with Chevron Rod when I staggered to the corner gas station for a popsicle.

“How’s Erin?” he boomed as I walked in.

“I’m kinda sick.”

He jumped back from the cash register.

“Sick!” he said dramatically.

“I’m sure it’s not swine flu.”

He stepped back up to the counter. “Bah. I figure, if you’re gonna get it, you’re gonna get it. Ain‘t no use in worrying about it.”

But I wasn’t sure whether his hop backward was a joke or a true visceral reaction. If you hear about something 24-7, does it matter that you’ve told yourself there ain’t no use in worrying about it? Doesn’t a part of you internalize the little warnings? Even I have been a bit more conscientious about washing my hands — by God, the President told me to. And if a hygiene slacker like me is affected by the buzz, why shouldn’t I expect people to jump away from their cash registers when I get the sniffles?

I sensed the kindest thing would be to smile and say, “I’m fine,” for the rest of the weekend, at least to anyone who had to deal with me face to face.

If you happened to be working at Hollywood Video, Rite Aid or Dan’s Foods, do consider washing your hands.