Just keep your mouth shut until you get in the car and are on the freeway!

I have discovered somewhere that is incredibly dangerous. It is a place that is a comfort for most and even a safe haven, but for me, it is a place to be feared and avoided at all costs.

WalMart.

I didn’t grow up with a WalMart down the street, so I have never really found a need to go there. I have Target, which is just as good. Not to say that I have never been in a WalMart before in my life, but this weekend I got the true WalMart experience. And IT FREAKED ME OUT!

My sister got a new apartment and we were shopping for stuff like bookcases and trash cans and pretty much the necessities. We went to Ikea and then decided to head to WalMart right next door to see if they had the other stuff we needed.

We walk in and I am instantly overwhelmed. There is so much stuff! To my left, the produce aisle. To my right, the lingerie section. In front of me, all the morally appropriate CDs I could ever ask for. Behind me, the poor greeter to whom I said, “Holy shit, this is white trash heaven!” I’m surprised I didn’t get a riffle pulled on me by some of the guys who no doubt had them in the back of their raised pickups.

As we are walking through, we can’t find anything! It takes three times as long to find things as it would in a supermarket or a drugstore or even in Ikea! Plus, there were about 200 workers but, because if it's gargantuan size, you couldn’t find a single person to help you! Crazy!

Now, I understand why WalMart is potentially so fabulous: convenience and price. You can find a new outfit, accessorize it, do your grocery shopping, get an eye exam and a physical, fill your prescriptions, have your hair and nails done all to have a wonderful dinner at Blimpie with a little ice cream from the frozen food section, while your tires are getting rotated. All for under $50. Why go anywhere else when everything you need is right there?

Oh yeah, maybe because “convenience” is not always convenient. Or pleasant.

There is so much stuff that it is hard to find even one thing. I would rather go 10 places that specialize in what I am looking for and I can go in, get it done and leave, rather than spending 20 minutes wandering around looking for stuff or being horrified by the hairstyles people are getting in the “salon" and wondering if the potato salad really is any cheaper than the stuff at Safeway. (I didn’t know that “feathering” was still even taught in beauty school.)

I think that the cherry on top, however, was that when we were walking out, there was a very large family walking in front of us. (I mean "large" both in numbers and actual size. But, let's be honest, who am I to comment on "largeness"?) The mom had bleach blond hair with long, airbrushed acrylic nails, a spaghetti strap tank top with her bra hanging out, cutoff shorts and flip flops. The dad was wearing flip flops, cutoffs, a beater and his sunglasses on his head. Then, there were 8 kids around them, in addition to a baby in the cart and a 2ish-year-old in the mom’s arms. The little boys all had faux hawks and the little girls all had fake tattoos. The contents of the cart are what truly solidified their white trash standing: beer right next to the diapers. There was also three times as much beer as there were diapers. I started laughing rather loudly and the woman turned around to stare at the crazy woman who is guffawing to herself. I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t blurt out “Spending quality family time at the WalMart huh? Are the kids going to help you drink the beer and change the diapers of the other kids while your husband gets the little girls real tattoos to match their fake ones?”

WalMart is a dangerous place for me.