K-Mart Excursions

I spent the day painting. Painting a room and painting a bed. You could say I'm nesting. :)

But after running out of spray paint for the bed (who knew it would take FIVE cans of primer to paint a metal bunkbed and actually more because it's not covered yet but I -- and K-Mart -- ran out so will have to pick up that project again another day...), I headed to K-Mart for some more.

Now I'm not terribly fond of K-Mart. I rarely go there, and it's certainly not my store of choice, but it does have the advantage over other preferred stores due to its convenient location of a mere 1/2 mile away from my house. So with paint all over my hands, my mowing jeans with a hole in the knee and grass stains all over the bottoms, and an old shirt, I decided K-Mart was going to have to do.

The last time I was at K-Mart, there was a guy at the register as I approached it to get in line, who was simply standing, bent over from the waist, with his head laying on the counter. The cashier poked him and tried to give him his change, and he stood up, swaying and took the change, took a step or two, and put his head back down on the counter again. I handed the girl my stuff and she checked me out, all the while both of us looking at this strange guy laying down on the counter.

I couldn't figure out if he was having a medical emergency, or was just seriously drunk or stoned. I think it was the latter.

He finally stood up and walked off, swaying and staggering as he did so. The cashier said he'd been at her register for fifteen minutes doing that and she hadn't known what to do! I said I'd better watch as I went out to see what car he got into, as I sure didn't want to be driving anywhere in his vicinity!

But there was no need to worry about that. He didn't even make it to the parking lot. He was standing by the gumball machines at the store entrance, once more bowed over with his head on the machines.

Do you see why I don't go to K-Mart?

Okay, so today I picked up the spray paint and stood in a loooooong line, because only one register was open. K-Mart is notorious for its long lines, another reason I don't go there much.

Slowly, slowly, I crept nearer the register, and was nearly there... there was one lady in front of me, and an elderly lady using a walker almost done checking out. The lady didn't have enough money to buy her stuff, and she took her money back and started digging in her wallet.

The woman in front of me made a disgusted sound, and left all her stuff on the counter and marched off, muttering something about how there are other stores. Just as she did, the elderly lady pulled a 50 out of a secret zipper in her wallet and paid for her stuff.

Why would you wait in line for twenty minutes and leave ten seconds before it's your turn? The time to get mad and leave was 18 minutes ago.

So I prepare to check out, when I'm taken off-guard by the girl asking when my birthday is.

Huh? My birthday? Why on earth did she need to know that?

Why, you have to be 18 to buy spray paint, didn't you know!? (I sure didn't.) I googled to find out why, wondering just WHAT kids are doing with spray paint these days.

Graffiti, of course. Duh. And here I was trying to figure out how they were turning it into a drug of some kind. Not that being over 18 would make one less likely to turn spray paint into a drug... but anyway.

So, armed with my dangerous spray paint, I went out to the parking lot, and there was the lady who had stormed out of the store, chatting with an older couple on their way in. I overheard them telling her how to get to Target.

Okay. So rather than wait another ten seconds -- or even another minute or two if it had taken the elderly lady that long -- she leaves all her stuff, goes into the parking lot and asks for directions to another store so she probably isn't even from around here which would make me personally even less likely to want to try to find another store, then she's going to drive ten minutes to Target, spend ten or fifteen minutes at least finding all the stuff in the store that she had left on the counter at K-Mart, and then have to wait in line there?? And this all makes sense because...?

I hope she was satisfied taking an extra half hour or more to save herself having to wait in that line another ten seconds.

And now, after 16 straight hours of painting, interrupted only by a couple of brief phone calls, a few minutes each for lunch and dinner, and an hour to mow the yard, I'm going to bed!

G'night!