The Dreaded Wal-Mart

Today I had to go to the dreaded Wal-Mart. I say “dreaded” because I hate that place. It’s a half day project and I don’t like to leave the farm period. Double that if it’s not horse related. I might leave if somebody says, “Hey, come and see my old farmhouse. It’s got bead-board walls and a claw-foot tub.” I might be excited to leave for that, especially if there’s a chance they’ll unload something old on me, perhaps a dusty old dresser they have no use for or even an old picture in a chipped and cracked gesso frame they think is ugly. Or I might leave for, let’s see…okay, I might be easily persuaded to go to a bake sale. If it’s not too far. Like say the firehouse was having something. I’d go down there. I’d be on the lookout for a pecan pie. You wouldn’t find any cheesecake. They’re not into that down here. That’s okay. I make my own. Three different kinds: New York style cheesecake, amaretto cheesecake and cream cheese pie. Kurt says I ought to sell my cheesecakes. That and my sauce. He says I can cater to the people from up north who can’t get good cheesecake and real Italian spaghetti sauce down here.

At any rate, I’d leave for a bake sale but I wouldn’t be happy about leaving for a candle sale, even though I like candles. Or a Christmas-in-July sale. Or a grand opening sale for a tire-and-auto parts store. It just wouldn’t be worth splitting for that when I know full well that when I get back a few hours later, the grass will have grown another foot and the horses will have dropped another ton of horse manure. Things pile up on the farm when you’re not home.

Sometimes you have no choice. Like when you are out of toilet paper, cat food and Blue Bunny Peanut Butter Panic ice cream. I mean, there’s no putting it off at that point. Plus I needed new socks again because they don’t make socks like they used to and about a month into it, you can’t keep them up anymore, no matter how careful you were about not stretching them out. Might as well think of them as disposable socks nowadays. So I had to go.

Like I said, it’s a half day project. It takes forty-five minutes to get there. That’s an hour-and-a-half in travel time alone. Then I talk to everyone. I can’t help it. Yankee or no Yankee, I am friendly. I like people. Especially the regulars, like the kind you find in Wal-Mart. I often want to stop and chat with the Wal-Mart greeter but they’re paranoid about having that job. There are so many jokes about Wal-Mart greeters that after they say, “Hi, welcome to Wal-Mart,” they just want you to not look at them and keep on going and don’t tell anybody you saw them there.

Don’t laugh but I’d love to have that job. I’d be wiping off carts, sanitizing handles (I’m a clean freak) and yakking my head off to whoever comes in. Say some old guy comes in to pick up his prescription. If he is wearing overalls, I might engage him in some conversation about the cutting of hay and the weather—how we’re all at its mercy and when is this rain ever going to stop? Or say a redneck guy comes in for a case of Mountain Dew. I might mention the NASCAR race. Like, “How about that wreck the other day?” If I had any idea. I’d have to keep up on those things if I was a Wal-Mart greeter.

I’ll tell you what makes me mad about those greeters. How come they don’t have a chair to sit on? They’re standing there all day long and what?—they can’t sit down for a minute? And most of them are old. That’s why I couldn’t have that job and I’m not even old. I’m one tough cowgirl out there pushing wheelbarrows full of horse manure and unloading grain, pulling weeds, pulling half-buried junk out of the mud in the dump that surfaces after it rains looking for something good. I mean, I have dents in my arms that define the muscle. I’ve got Michelle Obama arms. And strong legs like bull. And I wouldn’t be able to stand there all day long and not sit down for five minutes. I’m tough but my back would be killing me!

Anyway, the other reason I hate going to that place is because of the color. It is grey. It is dreary. It is the color of wet cement. It about makes you want to suck on an exhaust pipe if the conditions are right, like say you are due for your period. There are no windows. Where are the windows? You know, in the old days you’d go into a supermarket or a department store and hit songs would be playing (that’s what they called them back then—hits) but only the instrumentals, not the words: “Love is Blue,” “Close to You;” very soothing. There were big plate glass windows up front and you could look outside and see smiling ladies pushing shopping carts with little kids skipping beside them because no one dreaded going inside. They were in for a sunshiny shopping experience. They had a list that included cheerful groceries like Chex, Kool-Aid, Nestle’s Quik, a rump roast. Not a plain old roast. A rump roast. Whatever that is. A pineapple upside-down cake, peas-and-carrots, Jiffy Pop popcorn, St. Joseph’s Aspirin for Children and the ingredients for fondue. Perhaps they would pick up a Ladies’ Home Journal on the way out and the children would ride the mechanical horse up front in the bright sunshine that spilled in the windows and turned everything golden.

But the way Wal-Mart is today… I don’t know if they want you to actually forget there is an outside but when you’re in there, you might as well be in a cave. Maybe they don’t want the workers to see what they’re missing and make a run for the parking lot. There isn’t even any good music playing. I can’t get in and out of there fast enough. I often fill two carts since I put off going till I’m out of everything because I hate it so much. It takes forever. I have a lot to get, and in their defense, they usually have everything I need.

Except for American-made products. Like one time I was on a mission and decided, that’s it. I’m not buying Kurt a belt unless it’s made in America. I must have been making good time that day. Usually I just throw everything in the cart. I don’t care if I squash the bread or crack the eggs. I’ve got to get out of there! But I took out the glasses and looked for the tiny stamp on the underside of the belts. Made in China. Made in Pakistan. Made in Indonesia. Kelly and I went through every single belt on that rack. We were knee-deep in coils of leather like snakes around our legs and nope, not one American-made belt. That bothers me.

Looking on the bright side, I would probably spend more money if it wasn’t so dreary in there. But who has time to pick up a new toilet seat or a Swiffer WetJet Starter Kit on sale for sixteen-fifty when you’re rushing like a mad woman to get away from all that grey gloom? I did manage to grab a few cheerful groceries when I was in there today. Cream cheese, sour cream, graham cracker crumbs. I think I deserve a nice New York style cheesecake after going to Wally World. With cherries on top. I have no idea what I’m going to do with the rump roast.

(Check out www.GoingCrunchy.blogspot.com for another reason not to go to Wal-Mart.)

The Luxury of the Sunday Drive

I’m quitting using gas. When I go to Wal-Mart, it costs me twenty bucks. Thirty dollars if I forgo the hick look and do some real shopping in Roanoke. If I keep it up, I’m going to have to get a real job.

Everywhere you go in the country is far. That’s one of the drawbacks. In Jersey, you could walk down to the supermarket if you really wanted to. Granted, you got people shaking their fists at you and giving you the middle finger because you’re too far in the road trying to skirt around someone’s chain-link fence or avoid a vicious dog, but you didn’t spend anything doing it. My friends up north gasp when I tell them it takes me at least an hour to drive anywhere around here. They can’t believe, when we’re yakking about how to pinch pennies, that it’s not worth bringing clothes to the consignment shop, even the ones from the real shopping places, because they won’t pay you what you spent in gas. Or how you spend more money going to Sam’s Club than you save because of the gas. Everything I do, I ask myself nowadays, is it worth the gas?

People with little cars might think I’m cheap. But let them walk a mile in my shoes. Or in this case, drive it. I have a pickup truck, the ultimate gas guzzler. The last time I went to the Minute Market for gas and milk and a package of Little Debbie powdered donuts, it cost me over a hundred bucks. I thought about buying a Hyundai to hold me over until the gas goes down, if it ever goes down again, but what I’d spend on the car—the insurance, registration, personal property tax (something else they get you for down here) and the maintenance—would not offset the price of gas. Assuming that this situation is, of course, temporary.

Even if gas never goes down again, I can’t get rid of my pickup truck. I use it for farm purposes. I use it for getting grain and shavings and mulch. I use it to take the horses places and to transport irregular-shaped or large items like plastic kiddie pools for dog swimming, antique dressers hauled out of the Dumpster and flats of flowers. Plus, I like how I look in it. Big black truck, long blonde hair, sunglasses, Marvin Gaye or Gretchen Wilson (yes, I have very eclectic taste) blasting out of a stereo system Kurt installed so I’d be even sexier. Nah, I can’t get rid of it. But it’s going to sit right there in my driveway for as long as possible.

I’m not the only one revolting. I recently read about a guy in Missouri who is so mad he has sworn off his car and is pedaling to work on an old blue Schwinn even though it’s fifteen miles each way. Uphill. And there’s a kid in Tennessee who is actually riding his horse to school. Now that sounds like a great idea. But if I rode Harley to Wal-Mart, where would I tie him up? And where would I put the groceries? I know, I could use those stalls where you return the carts and hook him up to a wagon to carry the groceries home. Yeah, that’s it. We could all go back to horses and wagons just like Little House on the Prairie! It’d be fun! It’d be an adventure!

Kurt said, “Now you’re taking this country stuff a little too far. Next thing you know, you’ll be churning butter.”

Well, I don’t know about that. That’s manual labor for no good reason if you ask me. Like making soap. As close as I get to that is saving all the little leftover pieces and squishing them together in a big ball. It’s an Irish Spring/Ivory Soap/lavender-and-ginseng glob no one will use.

We’re not poor. Kurt makes a good living. But it’s still a struggle. The gas has caused everything to go up. I got sticker shock when I went into Wal-Mart last week. Almost four dollars for a loaf of bread? Almost a dollar for one pepper or one cucumber? I didn’t buy everything I wanted. I skipped the Sara Lee smoked turkey at the deli and ordered “whatever’s cheapest.” I bought bologna. I bought generic brands and I cut back on the extras. No paper plates, no paper towels, no People magazine even though there was something in there about Brangelina’s twins and it’s only a matter of time before Brad comes to his senses and wonders what he has gotten himself into. I’m sorry. I don’t like her. She’s mean to her dad. We’re talking about the Midnight Cowboy she’s being mean to. No wonder it didn’t bother her to take Jen’s husband—if she can be mean to the Midnight Cowboy….

Anyway, that is neither here or there. Buying crappy brands didn’t make a bit of a difference. The bill still came out to $388. for three people. I got out my glasses. It was somehow even higher than the last time. I don’t know what I spent it on. We’re still out of everything.

I wonder about the people who actually work at Wal-Mart. The people in low-wage jobs. Or even the guy down at the cabinet shop who has a good trade but who still only brings home about six hundred bucks a week. Decent money around here. I think about the nurse who is going to take the position the county is advertising for right now that pays a salary of $29,000 a year. How can they even afford to go to work? What about the people who have to pay for child care on top of it? They can’t possibly make any money after they fill up their tanks.

I’m giving everybody a heads-up. Don’t expect me to go anywhere unless it’s absolutely necessary because my wheels are parked. Sunday drives have become a luxury and my days of cruising around looking at the nice scenery around here are over. There will be no more driving to community service projects for the 4-H club or willy-nilly excursions to Lowe’s or automatic participation in fun activities without considering the distance and the fun factor. Except for barrel races and Frank’s Pizza, I’m not budging.

I wouldn’t even go down to the Minute Market when I ran out of milk. I called Kurt and asked him to stop on the way home. Then the next day I asked him to stop and get bread. Then I asked him to make the bank deposit on his way out. Kelly had a sleepover here and normally I would have offered to drive the girls home but this time I didn’t say a word. I didn’t say boo. It all adds up. My truck is still sitting there with half a tank. I’m saving it for a rainy day. I’m seeing how long I can go. Or stay. If gas goes up any higher, my tires just might dry rot.

We Know Stuff

Kurt is not entirely happy with what I write. At least when it concerns him. He wishes I wouldn’t let on that we don’t know what we’re doing here. I’ve offered him anonymity. I told him I’d be willing to change his name but celebrity is more important to him than his pride. I suggested the name Jerry. Jerry is my friend’s Prozac cat. Jerry is so bad he attacks dogs, sharpens his claws on steel and prefers the company of wild foxes than the other cats in the household. For their protection, he has to be tranquilized. That’s why Micaela refers to him as the Prozac cat when she’s telling me about the latest commotion he’s caused.

Jerry is also the name of a middle class guy who wears Bermuda shorts, takes Viagra and mows his lawn in socks and sandals. I thought it would be a good name for Kurt. If he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, he can tell himself I modeled him after Jerry the Prozac cat. And if his sense of humor ever comes back, he could go into the Bermuda shorts-wearing Jerry character and give me some more writing material.

But that is neither here nor there since he thinks he has a better chance of being famous than being laughed at if I use his real name on my blog. I mean, who knows what rich and famous person might read about him and give us some money? You never know.
He said, "Just don’t make us look like dumbasses. We know shit."

Here is what we know:

We know what weed-whacker to buy. We’ve gone through a half dozen of them. I am the weed-whacking queen. I became adept at it when we moved to our last property, a farm on a mountain. I didn’t know when we bought that place that the hills would be a problem. I knew nothing about hills. I came from the Jersey shore and Oklahoma where everything was flat. All I knew is that the hills were pretty and it didn’t enter my head about how I was going to mow them. Now when I hear about that movie, "The Hills Have Eyes," I think of that place.

Turned out the hills required non-stop weed-whacking. I used three tanks of gas in that weed-whacker every single week just to keep that place tamed. The only thing that slowed me down was when the string broke and then I’d have to wait for Kurt to put it back in because I could not do it myself. Oh I tried. But refilling the string in weed-whackers requires super human dexterity and a basic knowledge of machinery. In other words, a child could do it. Not my area. So I just chose another piece of equipment and waited for him. The riding lawn mower, the push mower, the hedge trimmer—I had my pick. And then there was the weeding. The grass in Virginia grows like it’s on steroids. But if it’s a weed-whacker you want, string refilling problems aside, the blue ribbon choice goes to the orange and white Stihl.

We know how to burn wood for heat. Also the fault of that other house. The locals called it "the big ole farmhouse settin’ on the road." It was big and it was old. It had a pair of propane furnaces, one in the attic and one in the cellar, that ran non-stop in the winter time. They blew warm air out through all the cracks in the bead board walls to the yard outside. Oh, that original bead board was charming alright. And those windows! One-hundred-year old glass complete with waves and bubbles—it looked just like Country Living magazine! But when our first heating bill came and it was more than our mortgage and the truck payment put together, we decided to take advantage of the woodstove in the house and the outside wood furnace in the driveway.

Something was going to kill us. If it was not the hills or the bills, it was the wood-getting. It took two pick-up truck beds full of wood per week to heat that old farmhouse. It was not like what I had dreamed about, living in the country, chopping wood, stoking the fire, a cast iron pot of stew bubbling on the stove. No, there was nothing romantic about it at all. Since the property was so hilly, Kurt would back the pick-up truck as far as it would go up the hill until the hitch was poking into the earth. Then he’d climb to the top of it and cut a tree down. Then he would scoot back down and chop it into pieces, trying not to slide down the hill the rest of the way or slip onto his chainsaw.

Kelly and I would climb up and push the pieces down the hill and hope they rolled close to the truck. Sometimes they got hung up on stumps and we’d have to scoot down the hill, free them and push again. Then we’d throw it all into the truck. Chunks of wood are heavy. Sometimes it took two of us to haul a piece. Sometimes we dented the truck. This is why folks have farm trucks. Then we’d go home where Kurt would chop it. Then we’d stack it. Then we’d spend every waking minute keeping the fire going. And that house was still cold. Now when I hear about that movie, "The Amityville Horror," I think of that place.

We know that you can find just about anything in Wal-Mart and it’s usually junk but you buy it anyway because it’s not worth the time to go to Roanoke when you could be out riding your horses or chopping wood.

We know that you can sometimes find something good at the Dumpsters. There are Dumpsters all around here where people bring their trash instead of garbage trucks coming to your curb on Tuesdays and Fridays to get your cans like how it was done in Jersey. And sometimes someone will leave something in front of the Dumpsters instead of throwing it inside because even though she can’t use it, you might be able to. I got a nice barrel for my front porch that way. I painted it green to match the cushions on my wicker chairs, turned it upside down and wa-la, a table. I left some reindeer lawn ornaments for someone else. Brandy, who lives down by the Minute Market once got a whole set of encyclopedias and the young couple in the log cabin with the rottweiler dogs got an antique sideboard with the mirror in perfect condition.

Granted, there are signs up all over the place that you’re not supposed to take someone else’s trash or else you can be arrested and thrown in jail with the other law breakers. I don’t know why they care if people garbage-pick. I mean, there are whole books out now about Dumpster-diving and how you can furnish a whole house on it or at least a room or two. Garbage-picking has finally gotten the respect that it deserves. But the county says you’re not allowed to do it. It’s one of those dumb rules they have. They want you to recycle your glass and newspapers but they won’t let you recycle an old walnut dresser that Effie doesn’t want anymore.

So you have to be sneaky about it. Like the brothers Dewey and Fred who live down the road in the doublewide and who grow geraniums and ferns in a greenhouse they built themselves from a kit. They go at night. They take the farm truck so there’s no traceable tag and if they find something good, one looks out while the other throws it in, and then they hightail it home and examine it more carefully there. Sometimes they have to take it right back to the Dumpster because it turned out to be a piece of junk, a chair missing its rungs or a table missing a leg. But they didn’t have the time to look it over good. Sometimes they hit pay dirt and then they brag about it to the rest of us and all excited, high on a good find, they return to the scene of the crime the next night to see if there’s anything else good. This is the crime in my neighborhood.

We know about how to make money around here. Though we’ve never done it ourselves. At least never to benefit ourselves. You just have a fundraiser. Whatever is wrong, you have a fundraiser for it. Folks love to raise funds around here for good causes. They thrive on it. Spaghetti dinners, pancake suppers, antique car shows, bluegrass music festivals, donut sales on the corner of the highway, car washes in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart, seed sales, cookie sales, bulb sales and don’t let me get started on the fundraisers they come home with from school—Scholastic books, candles and candy and plastic junk you have to pressure your loved ones to buy or else your little girl will be the only one in the class who won’t win a UFO glow-in-the-dark spinning gadget that never works right. It’s all for a good cause.

I’m not against the spaghetti dinners and the bluegrass festivals because a person can walk in there of their own free will. And I’m not one to pass up either a good meal or some good music. It’s the fundraisers that require people to knock on my door and rope me into something I will never use, like the strawberry plants that are still sitting in my vegetable drawer rotting away because I don’t have the time, alright, I don’t have the no-how, to plant them. Or, even worse, the ones my daughter is forced to participate in, like the candy sales. I’m new around here. Not many people owe me favors. I don’t want my neighbors to cringe every time they see us walking up their walkway with a catalog in hand for things that cost triple what they cost in Wal-Mart. I don’t care if it’s a good cause. I’d rather just donate the money or pay for my daughter’s school trip to Monticello myself.

If someone is sick or the PTO needs something, I’d rather just give the money directly. But folks around here obviously make a ton of money for all the time and effort they put into these fundraisers because they keep doing it. And I don’t hear anyone else complaining. Maybe they just need a good excuse to get together for some pie buying and fiddle playing. Maybe I should tell them about the sad circumstances here regarding my lack of a hay shed and that ugly paneling in my living room. A nice bake sale might just do the trick.