Grocery store WTH?

(For my gentle readers: WTH = what the heck?)

I had to run to the Mart of Wal yesterday afternoon. I miscalculated on the amount of milk I was going to drink this week (when it's hot, I may not eat as much, but I need my milk). I was running low. Now, I use the fancy expensive organic milk (my choice, but it does make getting it less convenient - the small grocery near me doesn't carry it, I should probably ask them if they ever could).

Which means, either a trip to Sherman or a trip to the Mart of Wal in my town. (I almost feel now like it would have been faster to go to Sherman - not really, but as Lynn observed about her town and stoplights, seems to be true of mine as well - I hit every darned light as a red on the way home.)

I tweeted with some dismay last night that "if there ever is an event that will lead to rioting and looting in my town, I now know where NOT to be." And that is at the Mart of Wal.

Granted, it was payday for many. (I get paid once a month, though more than $21 a day (and funny how that popped back into my head, that old cartoon. My misspent youth. (And I haven't watched it all through so be forewarned, like a lot of 40s cartoons, it may contain caricatures now considered offensive, I can't remember if it did or not.)

It's also the beginning of the semester here, so some students were there getting last-minute towels or such. (There are few choices right in town for those kinds of things).

But: I have never seen a more ill-mannered, rude, frustrating group of people in a grocery store in my LIFE. I almost put back the milk and the crackers and the cherries I was buying and walked out of there in disgust once I got to the checkout lines.

There was a woman with her 8 or 9 year old son. Son had one of those paper cups of fried chicken bits they sell. I know they are designed, I suppose, to be eaten in-store and then paid for, but it bothers me to see people walking through the store munching. (I can understand opening a box of zweiback and giving one to a fussy teething baby...but I also think that those above the Age of Reason, poorly-insulin-controlled diabetics excepted, could wait until they get home?)

Well, the kid was horsing around, as kids tend to. And the whole cup of chicken bits just exploded. They flew everywhere. A couple hit me as I was standing in line, several more rolled over my feet.

I sighed, closed my eyes, and murmured to myself: "And people ask you why you never wanted to have children."

The mom's first reaction: Go back over to where you got that, tell them you spilled it, make them give you another. No indication of whether or not both would be paid for or only one; no thought of cleaning them up. (The greeter did finally show up with a broom and dustpan, I had to point him to the general area).

There were also people arguing with the cashiers. And people pushing. And people blocking the aisles with their carts. And I saw another of my pet-peeves: someone has some refrigerated item, they decide mid-aisle they don't want it, so they just take it out of their cart and set it in the aisle - unrefrigerated, likely to spoil, and even if it gets back to the refrigerated case, it may be of poorer quality than the stuff that HADN'T sat out for anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour, and some unsuspecting person will pay full price for it.

I don't know. Some people just seem to have been raised by - well, I'd say wolves, but I think wolves are actually pretty socially-integrated and well-behaved within the pack.

Once again: If I could get grocery delivery from a store with a generous selection, I'd be all over that. (I shop at the little place near me for what I can, but there are certain items they just don't carry; they don't have space).

I don't know what it is about wal-mart but I always wind up in an utterly foul mood after shopping there. Either I'm angry at the entire human race, or, as was the case yesterday, I'm shaking by the time I get home. (Well, that was partly because someone started backing his mega-pickup in my direction as I was coming up the aisle to leave, and I had to honk at him to let him know I was there. I think he was literally so high off the ground that he didn't see me, even in a bright-red "crossover" vehicle.)

So anyway: come the Zombie Apocalypse, the wal-mart is one place to definitely avoid. (Or maybe it's the place to try to get the zombies to go TOWARD.)