A Reason to Love Wal-Mart

Even if you are a Wal-Mart hater and would rather picket another big-box store going into your neighborhood as you chant, "Rage, rage against the capitalist machine!", there is a great benefit to going there on a Saturday afternoon-- running into people you love.
Today I went with a very short list: butter and lemons for my mom, carpet fresh, a week's worth of yogurt (oh no! I just remembered that I forgot to get oatmeal!!), and the prescription motion-sickness patches for my cruise. Of course, I spent over a hundred dollars on various and sundry other tchotchkes-- stuff to make an "I love Paul" shirt for Valentine's Day (because if you can't love your male bestie, who can you love?), travel toilet paper and hand sanitizer (because Hil says Egypt is particularly disgusting), stuff to make Oreo bon-bons (really a crazy-good and easy recipe: taking them to FHE on Monday to tell the branch I love them!), and vegetables to make some incarnation or another of soup for dinner tomorrow night. It's all good-- I shouldn't have to buy much else before I skip the country, but you know. I get it. Wal-Mart can be evil, if for no other reason than I just can't resist the holiday aisle or the craft department. Still, I love it, because had I given in and taken a nap instead, I wouldn't have run into my high school BFF Wesley and his wife. We've all been trying to get together for about a month with no luck, but all we had to do was visit the Big W. Also, as I drug myself through the frozen food en route to pick up stew meat, who should I see but Diane and Rebecca Jolly, a mother-daughter combo from my past who I've not seen in a year. I LOVE these women! It was so energizing! After chatting with them and blocking people from their Texas Toast (which isn't good for them anyway, right?), I felt so much better, like I could actually go without a nap and still be good to party with my other friends tonight. Heck, I even saw Sister Ruth Bingham, a lady I've known from church my entire life, but I never see anymore. Ruth and I aren't close, but it warmed my heart to wave to her as I danced through the aisles.
What's more, it made me happy to be out with real people. Not that my family members and friends from the Uni aren't real, but there's something about keeping cool and friendly in a mass of humanity that just reassures a person that she's not going to go all unibomber on people any time soon. There was a homely little girl in a T-shirt that read, "I don't repeat gossip, so listen carefully the first time"-- it made me smile. My cashier told me all about her new beagle-mutt puppy and the sharp teeth that caused all the scratches and gashes on her arms. The pharm-tech wished me well on my trip. I nearly ran over a little girl named Lilly when she darted in front of my cart, but she didn't mind, and I was treated to the world's biggest smile before her parents yelled at her (she was wearing a really cute orange jacket, so we know she has good parents). All in all, it was a productive and pleasing morning. Now I've got to unload the Lean Cuisines so I can take a nap.