Bits Of Babbling

Cement Wasteland

Earlier today I made a pilgrimage to Wal-Mart to pick up a few odds and ends, mostly of the liquid variety as my fridge was feeling rather thirsty and I'm only in this apartment for another few days before summer break. I think its safe to say that the 24 pack of water, 12 pack of Pepsi Sí (Where did that Sí come from anyway? Stupid marketing!), 8 pack of Gatorade, Gallon of OJ, and Half-Gallon of Milk should last me till the end of this week.

I gathered these and other food items like a squirrel hording nuts for an impending harsh winter and headed for the checkout line. To my great fortune, there was a checker nearly finished completing a sale and by the time I had unloaded my bounty on the conveyer belt he was well prepared to begin ringing me up. A lady came in behind me and unloaded her stuff behind mine - I knew this would be trouble because she didn't use the black divider to separate our items, I would have offered one to her but there was not one to be found. Eventually he got to the end of the sale and sure enough, he had rung up cake mix on my bill while I was loading the water into my cart. This was no problem, I caught him in time and told him to take it off my bill. He did as instructed and gave the cake mix back to the lady who must have been staring into space because she sure didn't catch it.

My cart reloaded and paid for, I made my merry way across the vast expanse of cement which comprises the parking lot to my truck. I noticed as I began to unload my groceries that there was a car waiting for me, this always annoys me because I feel some sort of compulsion telling me that I need to go faster to let this guy into my spot when she could have just parked a bit further back. My fears were soon alleviated when I saw a car was moving out of the spot on the other side... wait... no. That spot wasn't good enough. So I continue unloading my groceries and just as I am loading the last of it in the car I see that she was actually waiting for a spot 2 spots away from the one I thought she would go for. In the time it took for her to claim this new spot which is what? 10 feet closer to the store? She could have been nearly INTO the store. Lady, if 10 feet one way or the other matters to you enough to sit there and wait more than 5 seconds then you might want to reconsider shopping in a humongous store. Just a thought.

Parking lots have lots of little things that occur in them like that which you could call "Pet Peeves" of mine. I'm all for the sense of victory you get when you find that spot 5 feet from the entrance of the store - but quibbling for more than 5 seconds on a parking spot 10 feet from an already open one is just plain silly. I typically start at the back of the parking lot and take the nearest open spot that is visible from the end of the line. It may not be the closest, but I don't mind a little extra walking.

Ah well, no harm done to me, I just don't understand the reasoning behind it. I went along my merry way back to the apartment and unloaded my groceries... I discovered something in the process of this banal task. The lady behind me at the checkout stand is going to return to Wal-Mart later, she needs to buy some flour.