We needed groceries for the zingy household and being the genius that I am I decided to go to Wal-mart supercenter. Not only did I decide to go to Wal-mart on a Saturday…..I decided to go on the Saturday before school starts. I know, I know….what in the world was I thinking?

Before I decided to venture out to Wal-mart, I had convinced myself that it wouldn’t be that bad and this would be a great errand for me and my daughter to do together. It would be a change of scenery for her and a good reason to get out of the house.

We arrive at Wal-mart and to my surprise it doesn’t look to bad. We have been shopping about 20 minutes and then I notice things starting to change. The store all of the sudden is a mad house…people with two teeth running around, other people on their cell phone with their cart in the middle of the aisle. You get the picture.

I finish shopping as fast as I can and make my way to checkout. This is where I realize, yup…this was a bad idea. Their are about 30 lanes open for checkout and each one is about 8 - 10 people deep. I pick the best looking line and wait my turn. I play with my daughter, who has been an angel through this whole shopping saga. No kidding, 20 minutes later and we have moved up the line to checkout…only one person in front of me.

The guy in front of me has less than 10 items which makes me think, “Dude, do the self checkout! Hello….this is 2007, right?” Oh well, some people are scared of those things I guess. He proceeds to put his groceries of motor oil, mountain dew, some kind of chunky soup, and some frozen tv dinners on the conveyor belt. At this point, I am just waiting to get my paws on the little plastic grocery separator thing so I can start throwing my loot on the belt.

As I am reaching into my cart to unload my groceries, I hear him say that he needs to do two separate orders. I take a deep breath and tell myself that these things happen, no biggie. While the cashier is checking this guy out he is totally hitting on her and I am starting to get nauseous and impatient. Then he does the craziest thing on the planet….he pays with a check, on both orders! Everything comes full circle for me…of course this guy isn’t going to do the self checkout for crying out loud he is still writing checks! Who does that?

I finally make it to the checkout, the cashier is very sweet and my daughter seems to like her too. She was very friendly and seemed like a really sweet person. Her only problem…she moved at the speed of a sloth!

We pay for our groceries, load up the cart, and head outside to the car. As we are walking to the car, I look at my smiling daughter who has been sitting in the cart for nearly two hours and thank my lucky stars that we aren’t at Wal-mart getting her ready for her first day of school. Although I know that day will come soon, I am not ready for it to happen just yet.

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