Walmart * 118 * Mama Ruth

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Rolled over at 3:30 this morning and decided to give it a nap...got up at 4:45...!!!  Hate that.  I like 4:00!!!  Even a little before but...I guess it’s okay...it’s Saturday...and then realized I really have this horrible list of supplies I need to get from Walmart so no time like the present...(and “no present like the time”—a great line from “The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”)  But it’s the downside of the pay weeks so I’m lowwww on cash and besides that went out with friends to dinner and a movie and I bought a cheap drink—twice that turned out to be $9 each!!!!  Some lessons are real expensive.  So I had to dip into the little collection pot for the road trip and took out two fifties.  I thought I still had about 30 dollars left in my pocket so I just added the hundred and calculated from the list that I would spend, oh, probably about $75 (now that’s very subtle foreshadowing, that is). Left out of here about 5:20.

To say it was redeeming might be a little strong but it was nice.  NO MUSIC in the store!!!  Only workers putting things on shelves—maybe two other customers.  In fact I was in the kitchen cleaner aisle looking for my beloved choreboys that nobody carries any more so was trying to make a choice from the 4000 other distant second choices when I heard a guy in the aisle one over ask about rubber gloves and the shelver said he didn’t know but he would look and so I couldn’t stand it, I said, “The rubber gloves are over here!” pause “oh!  Okay!  Thanks!” “Not to eaves drop or anything,” I added for the chuckle, and the little guy came around the corner—we had passed each other in other aisles so we were really good friends.  He said, “oh!  And you don’t even work here!” and I said, “Nope, but I happened to notice the gloves about the same time I heard you ask...” He said, “Oh here’s a box of 40 pair!”  I said, “You think that’ll do for, what, an hour’s work, maybe?”  Still reading the box, he said straight up, “Naw, I can stretch’em maybe  two days—I work slow.”  We laughed and went on our separate ways.  Matching a goofy sense of humor with a stranger is a wonderful thing.

Got my cart loaded up with all those things you can’t really buy anywhere else...toilet paper, 5 billion kitchen garbage bags, sandwich bags, freezer bags, tea (almost $2 less than what I pay elsewhere!!), shampoo/conditioner, butter (almost $2 less...) chocolate (the exact same price), kleenex, and probably other items...did I mention toilet paper? I have an irrational fear of giving out of toilet paper.

ANYWAY another thing I hate about Walmart even early early in the morning is that there is never any cashiers only the automated do it yourself thing and of the four usually at least two are broken and one has a guy at it like me who only comes once a year to stock up so checking out is a nightmare.  Well this morning the only register open was the 14 items or less (FEWER!  FEWER! I always want to scream) and the lady who should be at it was two aisles over rearranging point-of-purchase bags of chips.  So I asked her if that was indeed the only aisle open she said yes and made her way to the register...   Oh and a rake.  The main thing on the list initially.  And popcorn.  Resolve carpet cleaner!  Glad I saw that!!

So I checked out.  Loading the cart from the rounder of half filled bags and she says, “That’s a total of $118.37.”  Wow.  So I pull out the two fifties and say, “There’s the hundred.”  And thinking I had at least another twenty, I pull out the rest of the budget cash and...there’s a ten, a five and three ones!  No wait, FOUR ones!  Whew!  I laughed and said, “Oh my goodness!  It’s everything in my pocket!” I hand her the $19 and say, “So much for the drive-through for breakfast on the way home,” which I hadn’t planned to do anyway.  The floor manager a few feet away says, “You can always eat that popcorn.  It’s lookin’ pretty good right about now, I’m sayin’.”  “Yeah, and I’ve got the little cokes in there to wash it down and some butter, too, if I’m still hungry.”

As I thanked them and left, rounded the corner with the cart, out the automatic sliding doors and the world only a shade lighter than when I went in, I noticed a very dark, very worn, penny on the sidewalk, heads up!!!  Mama Ruth*!  I picked it up and plunked her in my pocket!   JUST LOVE that kind of punctuation to an episode like that.  How can you not smile and feel like the whole world is coming along nicely after all....

That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m in a hurry to go back before, like, August.



*For years now, Mama Ruth has been hanging around and making her presence known by the showing of a penny.  The first story was published some years back so anyone who knows me really well will catch this familiar, intimate, inside joke-like truth...always adding a special connection and presence for me.  Oh, and Mama Ruth is my Mama’s Mama.  Her birthday is March 24...the same day my Dad died in 2014.  She died in May something like 1996?  The year Emily was born...and Mama this morning mentioned “19 years ago”...

I miss everyone so severely...but tangible connections, the symbols that remain vibrant in my life, keep the connection strong and the hope of seeing them again pulsing with the longing beat of my heart.