If I Ran Wal-Mart

The kids and I were shopping today because even though it’s summer and it’s their vacation time, I still like to eat. Trust me, this has been a matter of great consternation to my children who think they must spend the entire month of July playing Wii until their eyeballs pop out. Food? Well, that’s why God created pizza delivery, right?

We had to stand in line a long time waiting for our turn to buy fruits and vegetables. If you were behind us in line, you’d have heard something like this:

"No, Poptarts don’t count as fruit even if they do have pictures of strawberries on the label."

"I don’t know why Bubblicious isn’t a food group all in and of itself. An no we’re not buying any."

"No, we don’t need any king sized Snickers bars today, but thanks for making me aware of the
fact that they’re on sale."

"No, I don’t think anyone who passes up that kind of sale on a king-sized candy bar is an idiot. But thanks for asking."

Luckily my kids are at an age where they take "no" for an answer without the tears and temper tantrums. The woman ahead of me in line wasn’t so lucky. She had two preschoolers who kept putting things on the conveyor quicker than she could remove them. By the time she had her cart emptied, she’d acquired two princess cell phones, three king-sized candy bars and something from the Bubblicious food group. As she put all the extra items back, the girls found others to replace them. A colorful gift card. A packet of baseball cards. Some M&Ms.

As the mom turned to me in frustration, I smiled and told her "If I ran Wal-Mart, I’d stock the check-out aisles with canned carrots and corn. Then we wouldn’t have to keep telling our kids no."

"Let me know when you take over because I’m coming to your Wal-Mart," she said as she grabbed her kids and headed to the parking lot.