at Wal-Mart

I just now got back from Wal-Mart, and you know.. even Wal-Mart holds adventures to be had! After hearing where I was headed, Mom, of course, hands me her list of things to get. One of the items on the list was dog food. Fine... no problem. I took Jolene with me so I wouldn’t have to go alone.

Franklin has a new Super Wal-Mart, and so when you walk in the door, it has one of those whooshy heaters that makes lots of noise, which in turn makes it hard to understand what anyone says to you. So that is why when I told Jolene to get a hand-held shopping basket, I couldn’t understand her; nor could I understand what the Wal-Mart "greeter" said to me. Jolene had said something to me first, but at the same time I was aware that Greeter had also said something to me. You know how you furrow your brow and squint your eyes and say "What?" in a very puzzled manner when you don’t understand something? Well, that’s what I meant to say to Jolene when I heard her say something about some dog. I thought she had said, "Do you think I’m your dog or something?" and I thought that was very much out of line...especially in a public place.

Sadly, I instead mistakenly said it to Mr. Greeter, and since I was headed in his general direction anyway, I was basically in his personal space before I realized what was happening. Not exactly in his face, dear old man that he was, but..... So in answer to my query, he said, very much astonished, "I said... how are you?" (Picture this..) "OH!" I said intensely, eyes getting wider by the minute, brow still furrowed, mouth in perfect "O" formation, "I am fine! And how are you?" "Fine, fine," he said. By this time, Jolene had caught up with me, basket in hand.

He grinned at me, then said, "You can just shop as late as you want to tonight!"

"Why, thank you!" I replied, still amazed at myself, and trying hard to be as friendly as possible. Well, then as we walked off, I started laughing and threatened to clobber Jolene who feigned all innocence. I asked her what in the world she had said to me in the first place. So she told me. "I just asked how you were going to carry two bags of dog food out in the hand basket is all."

Uh oh. Now there's a problem. So I made us do a fast turnabout and roared back up the aisle to where the same Greeter was standing watching us return. There were some shopping carts lined up in the main aisle there, so I grabbed one and told Jolene she had to take the hand basket back up to where the others were stacked. She was not impressed, but what could she do when she wasn’t in command? I abruptly turned my back, so she was the one who had to face Mr. Greeter. She told me later that he said, "Well, now you won’t have to carry all your stuff."