Friday, November 23, 2007

Wal-Mart, 2:49 p.m. – Old people are lugging oxygen tanks around in pursuit of those always low prices

What do you call the detritus of Black Friday? Whatever it is, I’m breathing it in right now. I hope I don’t get the MRSA or something.

I’m trying to lay low inside the Subway at one of the regular Wal-Marts in my hood and observe the action on a Black Friday from the customer’s point of view.

Let me go on record and say that if I were a customer at this Wal-Mart – I would be plenty pissed off. It is 3 p.m. on Black Friday – and there are only four registers open. There are LINES of people with buggies jammed full of cheap plastic crap trying to check out and no one seems to want to take their money.

The Subway here seems to be a popular spot. There is an Indian family off to my immediate right. This poor woman has four kids and a buggy full of junk. All the kids are restless and screaming and hopping around in the way that howler monkeys will do.

One chunky white woman just rolled up with another buggy full of crap – mostly imitation Barbies and Wal-Mart brand toys. She’s regaling two old crones with two-tone hair of her exploits. “I didn’t get everything I wanted, but I got a good start.”

Kali on a crutch. THIS OLD LADY HAS AN OXYGEN TANK IN A BUGGY. SHE WHEELED AN OXYGEN TANK INTO A WAL-MART ON BLACK FRIDAY.

My god. Consumerism has truly taken hold of America. She is seriously hooked up to an oxygen tank that she is pushing along in a buggy.

This old woman has an OXYGEN TANK and her MERCHANDISE in a freaking Wal-Mart buggy.

That mess did not just happen. It did not. I have to keep telling myself that or I will fall over and die. I wish I could have gotten a picture without being totally rude.

Citified homosexuals in camouflage coming through the doors now. One was cute. The other was wearing a camouflage thermal knit top. No way. No how. Baby Phat is not where it is at!

The air in here smells sad and dirty, and the people seem so desperate to spend. I wish they had quality merchandise to spend it on.

The after-work crowd is flooding in now. There’s a bored mother with three equally bored-looking teenagers struggling with a cart. Her son is wearing a John Deere hat in a totally non-ironic way. He looks like a few months a farm would do him good – in that “I need to learn to work for a living” way.

The lines are still long. Now there are only three registers open. And Wal-Mart wonders why sales are down? BECAUSE THERE IS NO FREAKING HELP!

Wal-Mart is going all-out this holiday season. They have every inch of this place covered with Christmas merchandising, big green “For Every Wish” signs in English & Spanish and actual greenery and ribbons on some of the registers and displays.

THERE IS ANOTHER OLD MAN IN AN OXYGEN TANK AND A WHEELCHAIR CART OVER HERE.

Cthulu on a crutch people. No damn plasma TV is worth venturing out on a day like today for.

If you are on an oxygen tank, do you really, REALLY need to be shopping?

This old man with the oxygen tank is sitting there in the MIDDLE of the big aisle in front of the registers debating some stupid plastic doll with his wife. Insane. Insane. Buy your granddaughter a book. It will last longer and do so much more for her mind. If she knows how to read, that is.

Another sign of the coming apocalypse? They’re selling “The Santa Clause 3” for $19.96. They ought to try that on the downloadable “pay what you want” model!

I just saw a manager go by with a loaded buggy – including an Xbox 360. Now where would he be going with that I wonder?

I can’t take this any more. I have a headache – the Wal-Mart headache. I’m bouncing.

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