Various, Random, and Sundry: My Middle Names!

I suppose I enjoy discussing what's happening in my life and work.  When things happen, and they do happen, I certainly enjoy ranting about it.

Guess what I'm talking about?

For example, last night we went to Walmart to pick up some photos.  Why, you might ask?  Because my daughter needed a photo of herself with her chosen victim, er, interviewee, for a veteran's day project.  Since I didn't have a lot of time to get the photo.  I downloaded it to Walmart and had them do it in an hour for no extra charge.  They send me a helpful text saying it was ready.  There.  The scene is all set.

Maybe I need to go to Walmart more?  Naw.

Then.  Then, the great word that precedes all that is odd and inexplicable in life.  Then when we showed up at Walmart, there was no one at the photo lab in the back of the store.  By the way, getting to the photo lab involved asking the greeter at the front of the store who gave directions, thusly.  "Ya'll go straight on back.  When you get to the big aisle ya'll want to go right.  That's the big right, right?  Then, about fifty feet or so, there'll be the photo place.  If you've gone to the shoes, you've gone too far.  Ya'll understand?"  Great.  But NO ONE was there.  And as HIM, the man to whom I'm married, will tell you, this is a recipe for Fat Woman's sense of injustice.  Furthermore, there was a sign.  A sign that said, "Saturday 9 am - 8 pm."  I checked my phone.  Yes, it was 7 pm.  This was the point where I said several statements which were overheard by both my daughter and the woman with her grown daughter who were using the computer terminals at the photo lab to design someone's wedding invitations.  These statements included foul language and a beseechment of why in the name of Kodak had I ever thought this way of going would be easier.  (Wedding invitations at Walmart?  Really?  Seriously?  OMG.)


Just a small town boy walking his pet alligator...

HIM got on his cell phone and called Walmart, because HIM loves to do stuff like that.  The person he talked to said the photo lab was closed.  I gestured at the sign frantically, er, angrily, and HIM hung up before I could grab it from him.

I had to think about this for a moment.

(This is why I don't shop at Walmart anymore.  That an incident back in the 90s which involved one of the senior citizen greeter/things chasing us out into the parking lot yelling, "YOU KNOW YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT!"  True story.  I swear.)

This is like one of those pictures that you stare at
and stare at and THEN it becomes clear.

HIM related the information to me.  I said, "Where's the manager?" and stomped into the front of the store.  HIM wisely took our daughter to where the game section was located.  (She had her change purse and was prepared to waste quarters in a wild and woolly manner.)  There at customer service, I had to wait for the single employee to park a shopping cart full of returns in a way that made her personally happy.  She saw me but she did not really care.  Finally I asked her about the STUPID photo lab hours and she said, "We're horribly understaffed.  You have to go back and talk to the electronics clerk.  She'll help you."

I'm not sure what this is, but I would
have taken a picture of it, too.

I think stared for a while, trying to prevent my eyes from rolling back in my head.  (Through years of practice I can finally do it, but it's still hard.)

I used this before but I couldn't help myself.

I tromped back across the entire store (it's a SUPER Walmart so I'm entitled to bitch) to the electronics section where the sole employee picked up a ringing phone just as I trudged to the counter.  Her conversation went like this, keeping in mind that I only heard one side: "Yeah, I didn't know that.  Hmm.  Well, I don't know about that.  Hmm.  I haven't heard that."  Five long minutes later I realized that she was trying to figure out how to transfer the person but couldn't.  Finally, she finally accidentally hung up on the person and turned to me.  Then someone else came up and said that she was needed in the returns area.  It turns out that this solitary individual was manning three sections at the same time.  (My annoyance quickly changed to pity.)  She got me the pictures and handed them over to me and then had to deal with the mother/daughter/wedding invitation fiasco.  ("Is this really ecru or is it off white?  Because if it's off white, I may vomit.")  (Wedding invitations at Walmart?  Really?  Seriously?)

I totally need Xanax for most of my shopping experiences.

To sum.  I got the one stupid picture I needed for my daughter's social studies assignment and I hate Walmart more than ever.