After passing a McDonald’s, three Starbucks’, Panhandle Pete’s Pawn and Trade and a couple of homeless geriatrics washing a car I realize that I’m not quite sure why I’m going to Wal-Mart in the first place. I probably need something cheap and slightly obscure, like a tent or construction paper. Oh, that’s right. Wasabi.
It takes me five minutes to find an aisle in which to park, as no one wants to let me in even when I have the right-of-way. Once I find an aisle, I have to wait even longer; the moving truck in front of me has followed a shopper into a Corolla and is waiting to take their spot. I notice the “How’s my Driving?” sticker issued by the company on his rear bumper, so I gave him a quick call to let him know that there’s an empty spot two places down. He tells me he’s a busy man and if I think I can give him orders I can go fuck myself. Then he rolls down his window and flips me off and burps. I glance at the clock; 20 minutes have passed since the homeless guys. I hope this won’t be as bad as my last visit.
The entrance to the store has been blockaded by a pudgy woman, a little girl and her mother, and a black Santa Clause ringing an eardrum-shattering bell. The pudgy woman asks if I would like to donate to help find a cure for breast cancer. I tell her I’m nearly broke and she says “okay, thank you” in a condescending way that makes me sound like the only person in history to refuse donating to charity. The little girl asks if I would like some Girl Scout cookies. I smile gently and tell her I’d love some, but I’m trying to watch my weight. The little girl frowns and her mother glares at me like a famished rattlesnake at a pacifistic field mouse. The black Santa asks if I would kindly give some spare change to help bring Christmas to Indonesia. I tell him Christmas was four months ago and he steals my watch. Before I enter the door, I’m asked if I would kindly give a little money to help prevent drug abuse. It’s the same pudgy lady again. For her persistence I give her a dime, which she scoffs at loudly.
Before I enter the store itself, I decide to buy my favorite drink – a Fanta Orange. I insert my coins and press the Fanta button. It says “sold out” at the top. “Damn,” I think, so I settle for second best – a Dr. Pepper. I press the Dr. Pepper button, and a Fanta Orange comes out. For some reason it doesn’t have a label. It doesn’t even have the remnants of one. It’s just a clear bottle with orange liquid inside. I’m too puzzled to stoop down and retrieve it, so I simply leave it there.
I walk up to the automatic door. It doesn’t open, so my nose hits it. The greeter laughs at me. I avert my gaze upwards to read “exit only” above my head. Embarrassed, I walk to the “entrance” door to make my entrance. I glance back at the doors long enough to notice a man with engine oil on his face entering the “exit only” door, which politely opened for him. I am bewildered. The greeter is on the floor, still laughing.
The first thing I do while inside is pick up a new watch, since black Santa stole mine. I don’t want to spend too much, of course, so I aim for the cheapest watch. It totals out to $2.74, with tax. I decide I can afford something a little ritzier, so I check out the most expensive watch. It totals to $2.74, without tax.
I proceed to the food section. On my way to the aisle with wasabi I notice a tank full of lobsters, all of which have their claws wrapped so they can’t do the things that lobsters usually do. Some of them are visibly crying. One lobster has hung himself.
I walk down the “cool ethnic food” aisle when I hear a suspiciously audible sigh behind me. I turn around to an inconveniently large woman on a basket-scooter contraption. Her right hip is caressing the jasmine rice and her left hip is knocking falafel mix off the top shelf. She looks like a bag full of mustard and grapes and smells like onion stew. She tells me to move the hell out of the way and I vomit out of disbelief. A nerd moves all the Pocky from the shelf into his empty basket and proceeds to the checkout.
I’m understandably a little disconcerted by my experience. Although it so far hasn’t been as bad as my last visit to Wal-Mart, my day has been ruined. I have my wasabi and my watch, but when I move on to the checkout counter I realize I don’t have any cash on me. My bank is inside the store, however, so I’m at least grateful for that.
I enter the end of a line of fifteen people. One person is at the front desk: an elderly black woman. The other workers, all white, are goofing off in the back. I walk around and ask if they might come to the front and help move the line along a little bit. They tell me that the bank is an equal opportunity employer and they’re trying to be fair. I told them that was completely ridiculous and they mention that “so is my face”. I walk back to the line, where the man with engine oil on his face has taken my spot. I ask if I can have it back and he says no.
An hour later, I have my money and go back to the checkout counter. I present my wasabi and my watch to the clerk: a teenage girl with blue teeth and a retainer. She takes a long look at the computer and tells me my total is a hundred dollars. I tell her I did the math and it only comes out to about $4.26. She gives an abrasive look before typing a bunch of stuff on her computer. Then she prints out a long receipt and hands it to me for proof. She has added things I hadn’t bought, like a pool stick and a ham.
I don’t know what comes over me from that point on. I’ve become enraged. As my faith in humanity plummets with the rapidity of an elephant pushed over a cliff, I barely realize that I’ve grabbed the dirty thief by the hair and have squeezed half the tube of wasabi into her mouth. She screams raucously and passes out. I assume my stuff is free and leave for the entrance.
When I get there, the greeter, surrounded by a few others, starts laughing wildly. “That’s the guy I was talking about!” she bursts, and they all start chuckling. I walk over to her and perform a German Suplex, breaking her spine. I would never have guessed how brittle senior citizens are. I kick the “entrance only” door off the rails and make my exit.
Once I am back outside, the pudgy woman confronts me immediately and asks if I would like to donate to prevent violence against women. I headbutt her and walk to my car. A man in a Silverado notices me and waits in the middle of the street so that he can take my spot instead of having to park two spaces down. I put my keys in the ignition and am about to turn on the car, when my eyes find my copy of The Grapes of Wrath in the passenger seat. I open it and begin to read, “To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma…” after reading for around three minutes, I look up and see that the Silverado is still in the middle of the street, behind him as many cars as there were people in the bank line. After a while, he drives off with a constipated scowl, and the next car in line pulls up behind me and waits. I keep reading until the driver starts to lay on her horn. I look into the car, and it’s the corpulent beast on the scooter. I decide I’ve had enough, and back into her violently, smashing her dashboard into her gluttonous stomach in such a way that I can’t see her ever getting out of the car again.
I curse the Hellish place as I speed off, vowing never to return again for any reason other than to set fire to it. “At least I have my watch and wasabi,” I mutter, but when I check the bag, the wasabi had expired months ago and the watch doesn’t have hands. Furious, I pull into Panhandle Pete’s Pawn and Trade to cool off.
I walk inside, and the clerk gives me a friendly grin. I look around the store and am surprised at the things I find – some of my favorite old movies, Super Nintendo games, some nice watches and guitars that are tremendously marked down but in fair condition. They even have wasabi for some reason. It makes me realize that although I normally find this place to be extremely shitty, there could be no shittier experience than visiting a Wal-Mart for any reason. I would later go on to find that Wal-Mart sucked so bad due to a series of ridiculous bets made by the owner and his old fraternity buddies, but that’s for another time. I did, however, see the owner on the news that night, when they did a story on how an unknown young man had physically assaulted several Wal-Mart employees, including a clerk who had consumed so much expired wasabi that she died. The owner still had engine oil on his face.
I laid in bed that night and reflected on the day. Just from the one visit, my character was broken. I was harassed, laughed at, insulted, confused, depressed and robbed. I hated the world, I hated myself, I had become temporarily impotent and my hair was falling out. But at least it was better than my last visit.
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This 33 word review has not been unlocked.
I thought it was very good. I really loved how you ended the piece. Yeah, you should’ve skipped to the action faster, but it wasn’t like it ruined the whole piece. I have a question though: Is the same pudgy woman asking you to donate to all these funds?
Other than that, great job =D
My first thought after reading your whole piece was that you should definitely shorten the intro; get to the action faster.
The only illogic thing was that you absolutely had no reaction to black Santa stealing your watch. I see that the watch is important for the rest of the story, but I would either insert your reaction there or make Santa run away with the watch. Or maybe you realize it was stolen moments later. I like how your character goes from phlegmatic to insane. The last sentence is perfect.
Enjoyed and laughed at, kudos.
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