Walmart Drive-By - Of Our Wallets

Do you ever feel like you have been in a drive-by – of sorts – after you have made your weekly run to Walmart? I guess I should include the ‘daily run’ humanoids if you are obsessive about grocery or personal item needs OR my husband. I also should not single out Walmart because they are not the only offender of this deplorable drain on my – I mean my husband’s – wallet. I also am going to add that I believe one my husband’s quests in life is to hit every Walmart in every town in the world; twice if he had the time. But no one has that kind of time.

Back to my story: Each time the cash register total for that day’s foray into consumerism is revealed, it has gotten so bad that it feels to me like I have been hit by a cash register bullet as the gunman cashier casually tells you the cost of the 3 bags of nothingness you have in your cart. A nameless shooter, I mean cashier (Stop prejudging me! Yes, I know they have name tags on, so technically I do know their name but I am trying to be dramatic here so go with it) who casually shoots my wallet with their outrageous total and then forgets their crime the minute I walk away with my bags and my (I mean my husband’s) empty dead wallet. I am not a person. I am a debit card.

This happens every Sunday when I accompany my main squeeze (aka husband, aka victim), list in hand, to Walmart to stock up for the week. Of course we never just buy what is on the list, but we don’t go crazy either. The most expensive thing we buy is Zantac. Thank you age and timeworn esophageal tissue. We don’t even buy that each time, but every week the cost of the aforementioned supplies ALWAYS exceeds our expectations, our budget and probably outdoes the total Gross National Product for the nation for any given quarter.

The problem? We don’t make that much money!! I have not gotten a raise in 2 years at my job. Heck this year, my employer is so tight on the budget we aren’t even getting the usual $20 Publix gift card. But then again the corporate wheels on the machine of supply and demand do not care if I got a raise or a $20 turkey. So, bottom line, my paycheck stays the same – but the cost of groceries goes up! Thank God – as I mentioned before – I don’t have to pay for them because my husband HAS gotten raises – so it is his job.

But me not paying for the groceries is not the point. I mean no one should have to focus on a problem that really isn’t their problem to begin with! But, don’t stop reading just because I am complaining about something that has absolutely no effect on my personal budget at all – or does it??

If my husband didn’t have to sacrifice obscene amounts of his ‘disposable’ income on necessities think of what I could have!! A tummy tuck, a quilt from The Country Store (so out of middle America’s income range) Dinosaur DNA, Glade Plug-In FANS (they don’t make them anymore – WTH), EVERYTHING from Pottery Barn, the diamond ring I found at the jewelers this weekend, a Tesla, retirement, RETIREMENT.

The list is endless. Well, actually it could all end at just retirement, but that again isn’t my real point.

I thought it was just my husband and I complaining about the cost of things. But yesterday as we were walking into Walmart, another couple was walking out. Guess what they were doing – guess. Nevermind, you are taking too long. They were looking over their receipt asking each other, ‘How did we spend so much money? We hardly have anything!” It was like watching ourselves. We stopped, we stared, we laughed, we danced, we sang, we asked the whole world to sing along with us…not really. We just laughed.

So, we are not alone in our sentiments. Not that I thought we were, but it never hurts to hear the exact words you have uttered repeatedly, come out of someone else’s mouth. It was another successful Walmart drive-by, but for a different innocent victim. I wonder how many there are. Why doesn’t it make the news? Wallets dead, all over the ground, shot, stripped of their cash and credit cards, slowly dying and no one fights for them! No one calls 911! What is wrong with the world? It is time to end the suffering. OOOOKKKK, definitely medication time. Sorry, got off track there.

All that does not support my goal of retirement, but it does help brighten today just a little bit by knowing someone else has to put off retirement too. I know you are judging me again for saying that, but I don’t care right now and doesn’t the old saying go, ‘Misery loves company?’ I want company!

In any case, give me a few hours (until it is quitting time) and misery and I are going back to Walmart to get something we forgot – need anything??? Never mind, I probably can't afford it anyway.