School Shopping on a Tax-Free Weekend...Hide Your Valuables

   The sea of people envelopes me; suffocating me.  I look left, I try to look right, but I can't; my head mashed against the shoulder of a bathrobed woman to my side who is screaming for her husband.  She, too, has lost the party with which she came.  Drowning in this wave of humanity, I realize the painful truth...it has happened...it is upon us...I stand among the masses, and we are being herded.  I choke back a sob...they WILL NOT SEE ME CRY.  Not here.  No, any sign of fear will single you out in this herd.

   I look up, exposed metal girders and fluorescent lights whose sodium glow illuminate us all as we roil forward.  I am propelled forward by the crowd; by this mass, this herd of human chattel. Overtaken and driven towards the ground, I thrust me hand into the air.  Am I forsaken?  Is all lost?  I feel a warm hand grasp mine.  I close my fingers around it as it pulls me forward.  I find myself face-to-face with Sarah who says, with a strength that has long since abandoned me, "We need nine composition books.  Can you do that?"

   Yeah, it's back-to-school shopping at Walmart on a tax holiday.  I don't know how chickens feel as they head for the slaughterhouse, but I bet it's like this (hey, PETA, that's a metaphor, I still think you're stupid, okay?).  I'm brought back to reality as I am reminded of my task,  "Nine composition notebooks."  Sarah looks at me with a confidence I can't help but think is misplaced.

   "Yes, nine, okay," I smile, the same smile Bruce Willis gave before he detonated the nuke in Armageddon, and head towards the notebooks.  The cutesy ones are gone...all that's left are the black and white marble cover notebooks, sitting alone on a shelf as neglected as that one house in the neighborhood that always gives out apples instead of candy on Halloween.  I sigh, but start counting.  I get to seven when I feel a blow that an NFL linebacker would envy force me out of the way.  I look up and see a woman, repeat with house shoes, what are either pajama pants or Nickelodeon has busted out a line of distressed-look Rugrats-themed ladies wear, a faded navy blue t-shirt that has the Superman "S" on it and a hole at the seam where the collar meets the right shoulder, and sponge-rollers (here before me stands a Walmart veteran, no doubt). 

   Without so much as a glance at me, she begins to count, "1...2...3..."

   I push my way back and grab my eighth notebook.

   Angered, the Kryptonian Rugrat bellows, "You gonna push a LADY?"

   I consider stopping to argue that point (and not the one that I pushed her, the one designating her as a lady), but instead grab the ninth notebook and flee like my hair is ablaze, the sponge-rollered terror shouting threats and questioning my parentage as I go, clutching my notebooks like Golem with his Precious. 

    As I return to our cart, our metaphorical slab of wood in this Atlantic Ocean in which Sarah and I find ourselves adrift with the other passengers from the school supply Titanic, "We need a Primary Journal Creative Story Tablet."   At Walmart?  How the...?  You know what one is, right?  It's a composition book where only the bottom half of the paper has lines and the top is blank, for pictures.  It's fairly specific...and...where the...Walmart?  Target?  No...when I worked at an elementary school we supplied them to students because we figured parents probably couldn't find them...but not here in this school division; nope, in addition to the two dozen gluesticks, thirty-six (I know, right!?!) pencils, four notebooks, pens (two different colors), folders, sheet protectors, Trapper-Keeper-style binder, sheaves of loose-leaf paper, ruler, pencil cases, partridge in a pear tree, et al...we gotta find a Primary Journal Creative Story Tablet?  For the love of Pete...

   Did we find one?  Nope.  

   Now, after a few groceries were added to the cart that represented an acre of rainforest defoliation; we headed to the check out.

   Oh, what a sight we beheld...this woman was in line in front of us with dozens and dozens and dozens of items in her cart.  And, when she came across items she decided she didn't want, she loaded them up on the shelves of the candy aisle.  What sort of items?  Bags of shredded cheese, two blocks of cheese, a bag of potatoes (had to leave those on the floor because those would not fit on the Mr. Goodbars).  Now, you might be wondering, "doesn't cheese have to be refrigerated?"  Sure...but the candy aisle at Walmart is always a balmy 76 degrees, and that's good for cheese, right?  And it's perfect for potatoes.

   So...it's time to leave Walmart...time to head home.  So, we do, wading through that same sea of humanity that washed us in; its waves crashing on the beach of school supplies like breakers against the shores below the cliffs of Dover.  

   The lifeboat that is the Nissan minivan swallows us and our purchases.  We head out of the parking lot, counting ourselves among the lucky who fled the HMS Walmart in one piece...we still gotta find a Primary Journal Creative Story Tablet, though.  Crap.

   The wagon rolls on, or bobs on along on a sea of humanity.  Thanks for riding shotgun - in the event of an emergency, your seat cushion doubles as a floatation device.