Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Ahhh, The Wonderful World of Walmart

Those who know me well know that I don't swear. Ever. I have been married to my husband for almost 9 years and he has heard me say a swear word one time. And immediately after, I yelled at him and told him he was a bad influence and told him he was no longer allowed to swear in front of me. (To this day he still gets a good tongue-lashing when he lets a word slip). When someone asks me, why don't you swear? I always just say "because." I don't really have a reason. I just don't. Well, from now on, I have a good reason......Did you know that swearing in public is against the law? No? I didn't either. That is, until last night.

My night started out no different than any other. I had to go to the grocery store. I had been putting it off because I knew the store would be packed with Christmas shoppers. Much to my surprise, when I pulled into the parking lot, it was relatively empty.
At one point I found myself standing alone in the cereal aisle....not another person in sight. I was worried for a second that I had been sucked into another dimension. An empty Walmart aisle is unheard of! Little did I know this was the calm before the storm.

So, I was meandering through the aisles, and dare I say....enjoying it...a little. I started up the juice aisle and saw there was a young man....we'll call him Roy... in an electric wheelchair/cart thingy coming towards me. He was the only other person in the aisle. He was maybe 22. I wondered for a second as to why Roy was in the wheelchair. As I strolled closer I noticed he had one foot that was bare. It was swollen and black and blue. I noticed he was talking on his cell phone as I walked past him and he was complaining about some sort of verbal altercation he had just had with another shopper....who we will call Larry.

All of a sudden, Larry comes running around the end of the aisle (along with about 6 of his closest friends)towards where I am standing beside Roy. Larry is irate. He is screaming. "Who you talking about %$#@&!?" Roy hops up...and when I say "hops" I mean, literally, he hopped...on one leg...and starts screaming back. I couldn't have been more than two steps away when I heard a loud CRASH and turned around to see Larry throwing Roy into the shelf of crackers. Small boxes of goldfish crackers went flying everywhere.

I picked up my pace and ran out of the end of the aisle and turned to see what was happening. The two GROWN men then proceeded to beat on each other.

At this point in the story I have to interject. So, if you were a man......in an electric cart....with only one good foot....and you felt like picking a fight, would you pick a fight with a robust-looking man accompanied by a small posse? NO..? Yeah, me either. So anyhoo...

Roy was screaming out expletives. Swear words, curse words, racial slurs, every four letter word you can think of....you name it, he said it...and then some! Most of these words were not appropriate for my adult ears to hear...let alone the little ears that were unfortunate enough to be within earshot.....which was at least half the store. Roy had a great set of lungs, if ya know what I mean.

I expected, at any point, to hear them come over the loudspeaker and say "Attention Walmart shoppers, will the morons that are fight in aisle 7 please leave the freakin' store!!" That's what I would have done if I was the Walmart manager.

Along with Larry's posse was his son. He was maybe 10 years old. He was yelling "Daddy! Stop! Please! Stop!" It was heartbreaking! So after about 20 seconds another shopper.....a big, burly guy, stepped in and tried to break them up. It ended up taking him and 4 other Walmart employees 2 security guys and 2 guys from the meat department)to pull them apart and separate them.

I just walked into the next aisle and went on with my shopping. Contemplating why, certain men, were willing to throw punches over the dumbest things. So, I had made my way up to the frozen food section when I saw a Walmart security guy, the big, burly peacemaker guy and a sheriff, walk into view. The burly guy pointed to me. Oh crap. I had a feeling my ice cream was going to be melted before I could get it home....

So, I had to go talk to the police and tell them what I had seen. When I stepped outside there were SIX police cars with their lights all flashing. At this point, I was really wishing I HAD been sucked into another dimension in the cereal aisle.

Larry was arrested for throwing the first punch and Roy was arrested for....can you guess it?? ..........Using profanity in public!

So, the next time you are in the produce section at the supermarket and you grab an apple and a whole bunch more fall on the floor, choose the words you shout out carefully!! :)

P.S. I now know I am a true blogger (as if there was nay doubt before). The entire time I was watching the fight and staring at the flashing lights in the parking lot I was so bummed because I kept thinking...."Dang! I wish I could have brought my camera. This story would be so much better when I blog about it if it had pictures to go with it!"

12 comments:

Unknown said...

You have go tto be kidding!!! Nothing exciting ever happens to me at Wal-mart. That is so crazy, did you ever find out what started it all? I can't imagine what was sucha big deal to fight in front of your kids and a trip to the police station.

Too bad you didn't have a camera. I find myself thinking the same way. Wondering if things would make a funny blog or not. Long live blogging!!

Christina

One Scrappy Gal said...

From now on... "for goodness sake" or "golly gee" will be my popular refrain!! YIKES!

Good luck with the sleep apnea study. Does your little guy wake up 20 times a night like mine does?

Jennifer said...

I to think the same way. Man I wish I had a camera handy so I can blog about it. When will I learn to carry the camera around my neck at all times?

I do my best not to cuss, but I would have been arrested plenty of times I am sure, with pregnancy hormones running amock since 2002, LOL.

Hillary said...

I wish you had your camera, too. I'm glad to know that swearing in public is against the law. Maybe we should move to Florida, cause I don't think it is here in CA. I wonder if they were fighting over the last crockpot that was $3.99. I might've joined in too :)

Anonymous said...

What a funny story! Was Walmart nice enough to replace your ice cream?? :)

Only at Walmart!!

Lisa

Kellan said...

That is crazy!!! And, I didn't even need pictures, you described it perfectly - I was a bit scared! What a story!

Duck Hunter said...

What a great story! Good job on telling it.

onthegomom said...

OH MY GOSH! I cannot believe that! The MOST I have seen at my local Wal-Mart is a mother (it's a relative term, believe me) screaming at her kids. And we aren't talking like you and I and most people who are trying to keep our kids out of stuff, etc. etc. This is different! All out screaming... but I am pretty sure I haven't heard too many curse words.

That was an amazing story! I am glad you were safe, though.

Family Adventure said...

Valarie, I am just shocked that you saw that. In Wal-Mart?! My heart breaks for that poor boy. I would imagine this wasn't the first fight he'd ever seen.

I wasn't clear on this - did you have any of your kids with you? I hope not!

Heidi

girlymom said...

WOW what an exciting night you had! Bummer for the 10 year old though, from his comments it sounds like this wasn't the first time this has happened. Yikes. Being the ice cream fanatic that I am...was your ice cream ok? It didn't melt did it?!! :)
Too bad about your camara!
Woulda- coulda- shoulda

Valarie said...

For those of you who have shown concern for the well being of my frozen foods...don't worry. I was allowed to replace everything in my cart that I wanted....

Autumn said...

oh my word!!!! What a great story, how funny to witness it!!!