Escape From Crazyville

*First of all, you should know that this post is very personal.  I tell you stuff about my body functions that you might not want to read.  So quit now, if you don’t want to read anything gross.  Or funny.*

Yeah, so I blogged this wonderful, heartfelt, tear-jerking post about all things I thought about today, and how Thanksgiving is so different now, from when I was a kid.  I blogged about all the things I’m thankful for and all the ways I’m blessed.  And you might get to see that post eventually.  For right now, I just want to take a second to say that I’m thankful that I had a friend who let me escape Crazyville tonight.

In all my life, I’ve never been out shopping on Black Friday.  So I certainly have never been out on Thanksgiving night.  In fact, I’m usually so stuffed and over stimulated, that I have not one single tingle to go out and be in public, usually until Sunday morning at church.

Something happened today.  Someone must’ve spiked the turkey or the stuffing, because Beef and I decided to go out and brave the weather, to check out the local Wal-Mart.  Ok, seriously, it wasn’t like we just came up with the idea.  Here’s what really happened:  After a nice lunch with his family, we toodled on home, and as we shooed the kids up to their beds for a nap, let the dog out and brought him back in, I used the restroom and found out that I got my bonus period for the month.  Yep, twice.  In one month.  Which means that I had exactly two tampons left in my stash.  Because who prepares for their period two weeks ahead of time??? Not me.  I know exactly when my cycle is, and I know for a fact that I am not due for this blessed event for another two weeks! Well, lucky, lucky me.

So, the reality is that I am forced to go to town.  I’m not really sure what Beef’s excuse is, but he decides he is going to tag along, and for good measure, let’s bring the kids.  Because hey, we’re wild like that!  Because I’ve driven by the Wal-Mart on crazy event days before, I knew that there would be alot of people there.  Beef had no desire to believe me.  So, when we pulled up and a car for every licensed driver in the county was parked everywhere in the lot, outside the lot, alongside the road and several were parked illegally, he was a bit shocked.  Myself?  Not so much.

We tell the kids that they MUST stay with the group, because someone might take them, and that would be tragic on a Thanksgiving night.  They are good and scared, and we take their hands, and go into the store.  First sign of trouble?  The guy bringing carts back in offers us one.  There are zero carts in the store available for use.  Which means that’s about how many inches there are available for movement.  There is yellow crime scene like tape all around the store in random places, apparently signaling this is the path to follow to get out of this bargain induced hell-hole.  Sort of like following the yellow brick road, I guess?  I’m not sure, but we grab a steel buggy from the pick up man, and wrangle our way into the rodeo.

The next sign of trouble is when we can’t get the cart around.  I begin to make plans to ditch the extra width and breadth of our wagon train, and as I’m trying to navigate the narrow path between all the yellow tape, I pray that no one in our group needs to use the restroom.  When I realize that there is no system to the citrine polyvinyl threads, I decide to drive under them to get to where I need to go – the photo area.  Of course, this is the exact same moment my daughter realizes that she must police every action I make, and yells out that we can not go under the tape.  “Yes we can, now duck!” I bellow, and drive my silver steed under, with my children ducking while holding onto the sides for dear life.  Beef is lagging behind, greeting every other man he knows with some type of unbelievable calmness, while I, in straight panic mode, continue to make my way to the photo area.  I have somehow managed to forget this area is by the electronics department, where they must be having a buy one get one free sale, because there are about fifty people per square inch in this location.

There’s a man named Matt there, and Beef is chit-chatting with him when I hear one of my kids yell out, “WHO FARTED?!”  and then it hits my nose.  That stench.  It is horrible.  I want to vomit.  The air is so thick and heavy and hot.  I look at Beef, who is making small talk with Matt and his female companion, and I see that all too familiar twinkle in his eye.  How can someone stand and calmly exchange pleasantries with someone else while something so noxious is escaping their nether end?!  I bolt.  I can’t breathe.  I’m still searching for that dumping ground for that silly cart, which thankfully had four good wheels.  As I’m trying to out think and maneuver around every person who has ever lived in the county, my two trusty sirens are still screaming about that fart.  As we move through the crowd, my son, hanging from the right side of this wild wagon, is getting beaned in the head by each passing clothing rack.  He’s not crying, he just grabs his head, says, “Ow”, and grabs back onto the cart.  He’s sort of like a cartoon character now, and I can’t help myself.  I laugh.  But I know it’s that nervous, about to have a mental collapse laugh, because I feel outside of myself.  I can see myself, in a panic.  I’m sweating and panting, and my heart is pounding outside of my chest.  I have a forty pound coat on and it’s so hot and there are bodies everywhere. I can barely move my Michelin Man body through all these dang people!  I ditch the cart in the candle aisle, which was a nice change of smell from the nasty fumes I’d just escaped, and made my way to the biggest aisle I could find, to get the heck out of this insane location.

Of course, this, the biggest aisle in the place, is also crammed with the most deals, which are being picked over by crazy cell phone talking robots, who look harmless enough, but I wonder, as I’m waiting in a panic for them to move out of my way, if I speak, will they bite me?  Finally, the cell phone shoppers move on down the road, and just as we’re about to break open like Emmitt Smith in downfield territory, there is Line’s swim coach.  If you don’t know, any adult outside the home is a celebrity to children in 3rd Grade and below.  They know you are someone special and they give you the royal treatment.  If my child knew about autographs, I promise you, she’d have been begging her coach for one as the poor woman tried to make her way deeper into the belly of the holiday sale beast.  As Line screamed out “That’s my swim coach!” I patronized her while continuing to move our wagon train forward.  We rounded the corner to the path we always take to get to the check outs.  A path that was now being blocked by a gigantic blue screen.

Dang you blue screen!

I’m looking for a way around the blue screen.  Beef, who has finally caught up to the group, tells me we can’t get out.  He might as well have just stabbed out both of my eyes and asked me to read a book.  I could not comprehend what he was saying.  I continue to see, if my kids could go under the screen, maybe I could wiggle it just enough to get around it.  I see, in the distance, just over the blue screen, two brunettes, shaking their heads at me.  Telling me, without a word, that I am going to be here forever in this nightmare, staring at this dang blue screen.  Surely this can’t be real.

She looks at me, and I recognize her face.  I know her.  I know her, and she’s just got to be able to help me.  She’s walking closer to me.  “I can’t get out of here?” I ask, in a pleading, kind of way.
“Nope.” she says.  “Well how do you just get out of this store?”  I ask, again, in extreme fear.  “You’re not buying anything?” She asks.  “NO!  I just need to get out of here right now!” I say.
And like the gates of heaven, the light shined down, and she moved that blue screen just enough for me to push my way through, pulling a kid on each hand behind me.  I thanked her profusely, as I continued to dash my way out of that insanity.

As Beef and I waddled with our ducklings back out into the cold, we continued to marvel at the people who would be out in that environment.  On Thanksgiving night!  “Kids, that’s what crazy looks like!”  I said very seriously.  I told them that we will never do that again.  “We’re never going to Wal-Mart again?” Line asked.  “Maybe.”  I retorted.  “I’m probably going to suffer flashbacks of this for a very long time.”

It’s been three hours, and I still have buzzing in my ears.  I can still see the lady with the three things of cookware in her cart.  I still am trying to figure out how I would have moved that blue screen, had I not been saved by the Wal-Mart Angel.  So yeah, I’m not ever doing that again.  I’m just going to stay on the safe side, and plan for my period two weeks ahead of time like all the other sane people.  I’ve escaped from Crazyville, and I’m not ever going back!