Why Walmart is dead to me.

So we’re all familiar with Black Friday, my favorite day of the year.  (Ok, I like Halloween, too.  And my birthday.  And random Saturdays in the fall.  But shopping for the best deals of the year?  Ranks up there.)  This year several stores are getting in on the action early, with “Early Black Friday!” or “Pre-Black-Friday!” sales.  One of these, is everyone’s favorite “This store is too freaking big I can’t find anything none of the employees have a freaking clue why the hell am I here?” store – Walmart.

Walmart ran ads saying that Sat. Nov. 7th was going to kick off their season of sales by being the day to pick up electronics on the very very cheap.  Joe and I happen to be in the market for a flat TV.  The fact that we own 3 perfectly good TV’s doesn’t really matter. Well, it doesn’t matter to me.  Joe is of the opinion that one television per member of the family is crazy, but I am of the opinion that having a giant armoire holding a giant TV in the living room is crazy considering we can just buy one that hangs on the wall.  I have brought him around to my way of thinking, and showing him this ad finished the job.  Walmart was practically giving away televisions!  A 42 inch LCD w/ high resolution for…. $498!  Holy crow.  Look at this beauty!  Cnet.com called it “the best LCD TV we tested.”  We have never owned anywhere near a 42 inch TV before.  Never really even considered it.  But now it would be ours ours ours.

I went to the store on Thursday to scope them out.  They had one on display (wow – 42 inches is large), but none on the shelf.  I asked an employee how it would go down on Saturday, and he told me that they would start selling them at midnight Friday night.  Ooh!  Glad I had this conversation!  I drank coffee with dinner last night, and psyched myself up to do a little late-night-bargain-shopping.

Got there at 10pm, went straight to electronics… still no stack of TV’s. When I asked the guy behind the counter when they would wheel them out, how this would work, etc, he looked at me like I was a moron and said “Yeah – it’s a SATURDAY sale.  They’ll “wheel them out” tomorrow morning.”  Dammit.   I was all full of caffeine and aggravation, and now had to wake up freaking early on a Saturday.  Wonderful.

This morning I watched the sunrise while I got a breakfast sandwich (I like to get my week’s worth of fat all in one go) from McDonalds. The teenager at the window told me I was “looking very pretty this morning!”, so I guess last night’s make-up was still going strong. I waltzed into Walmart at 6:10 a-freaking-m, almost a full two hours before the stuff was going on sale, and about three full hours before I’d like to be out of bed on a Saturday. I strolled towards electronics feeling confidant, and when I saw a small line of less than ten people I practically did an undignified happy dance right there in the aisle.

I was pulling out my iPod and greasy sandwich when the employee in charge of crowd control asked me what I was there for.  I foolishly gestured to the line and said “I’m here for this!”, like the TV was the only thing they were selling today.  Yes, now that I’ve Googled all mention of the sale, I see that they were also giving away Xboxes and Blue-ray players, but when I was originally reading this stuff I only saw  TV! 42 INCHES! LCD! Less than FIVE-HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!!

Back to Wally World – the very tired and cranky-looking (“I can’t BELIEVE I pulled this shift with all these early-morning, bargain-hunting LOSERS!”) employee slooowly asked me again “What. Are. You. Here. For?” and I replied (also slowly – it’s my way.) “I’m. Here. For. The. 42. Inch. Television.”  Which is when she dropped the bomb – “We’re already out of those.”

Wha?

At my blank look she said “They’re gone.  They’re all sold out. It’s too late.”

Huh?

I looked back at the line.  Seriously – less than 10 people.  I looked at her.  She said… wait for it….

“We only got three of them.”

Three.  Three televisions for the only Walmart in Shreveport, population 200,145.  (Ok, exaggeration. I looked it up, and apparently there are four Walmarts in Shreveport.  So I guess there were 12 available TV’s today.)

She said this with no embarrassment, no sign that it was a horrible, vile, dishonest thing that her store was doing. After advertising online and in print, getting people to get out of bed (twice, if they were first told to come in the middle of the night. Jerks.) for this… they only had three.  Just enough so they could legitimately claim to have sold these TV’s for that price… but not so many to actually affect their bottom line.

I walked away from there, vowing never to bring my business back to Walmart. Ever. I’m done. They’re dead to me.  I’m Target’s girl, now.  Walmart can keep their bargains and their useless employees and their huge stores that it takes 15 min to “run” into to buy a gallon of milk.  I’m finished.  They can close down for all I care.  In fact, I hope they do.  I’m never going back again.  They will not see another dollar from me.  Hmph.

 

(On the way out, I bought Violet a Christmas dress.  It was only $16.50, and it is gold and sparkly and has puffy sleeves and a tulle skirt and Target’s start at $29 and are simpler and therefore less likely to make V squeal with delight.  But now that I”m out of the store – really – I’m done.  I’m never going back.)

(Wait – I just remembered that starting today they are selling turkeys for 47 cents a pound.  Dammit.  But seriously – after I get a turkey (Fine. Two turkeys.) I’m really, forever and ever, done with that freaking store and their ridiculous fake bargains.  Drag my butt out of bed before the sun.  Grumble grumble foul curse words grumble. )

200145d

See ya, suckers!

So have I talked about the year-round-schooling thing here?  No?  I haven’t talked about anything?  I took 9 months off then came back and got right to the business of quoting smartass children without ever feeding the blog actual information about our lives right now? Hmm.

Well – I certainly don’t have time to catch you all up tonight.  I’m busy packing.  Yes, packing.  Not unpacking.  It makes a nice change.

Violet’s school has a year-round schedule.  She doesn’t have a long summer vacation.  Instead, she gets a couple weeks off several times a year, and extra long breaks for holidays (next month she gets the whole week for Thanksgiving, etc.) Her first big break started today – she doesn’t have to go back to school until November 2nd.  So, of course, we’re going to Disney World.

(Now read the title again.  It really works as a closing statement….. here.)

Small post today – I have to go boil myself.

Giant freaking roach

just walked on my freaking foot.

Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.

So, it just shoots the water right in your mouth?

A while back, Sonic’s prize when you bought a kid meal was a silly straw.  Only the bag said “Atomic Straw!”  V looked it over and said

“Automatic straw?  Cool! So you don’t have to suck?”

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(And that’s all you get.  Jonas is sick, which means I’m not permitted to sleep.  Or eat.  Or pee without either him holding my hand or standing outside the locked door screaming my name. All I am allowed to do is hold him, wipe his nose, and administer cough syrup and popsicles.  In the middle of the night last night, I was trying to find the silver lining.  “Look, this is actually a good thing.” I foolishly told myself. “If he’s sick RIGHT NOW, then he won’t be sick next week when we’re in Disney World.  Violet was the first one to have this (freaking kindergarten germs of death), Joe and I have already worked through it, now Jonas is bringing up the rear. This time next week, we’ll be getting pics taken with princesses, and other than a lingering cough everyone will be fine. ” Then this afternoon madam came home and announced that at rest time, the boy next to her had thrown up “all over the carpet!  It was GROSS!”  Shoot me now.)

Oh the humliation!

On Thursday we went to the park (We were supposed to go to the science museum, because the deal was if V finished all her homework for the week by Wednesday then we would do what she wanted on Thursday and what she wanted was the museum.  She finished, and we made a big deal of going to the museum mid-week – “Isn’t this great! We get to go to the SciPort on a school night!  We have all this time for fun stuff because Violet already finished her homework!  Isn’t this fantastic!”  Then we get down there and the parking lot we usually park in is full of tents – some big festival thing is going on.  No problem, we’ll park in the lots behind the museum… no, wait… they have big “VIP Parking ONLY!” signs in them.  Hmm.  How about in this Holiday Inn parking lot that’s about 1/4 mile from the museum?  Hmmm. “Hotel parking ONLY! NO festival parking! Violaters WILL BE TOWED!”  Hmph. Maybe I can go around to the other side of the SciPort and find parking over there?  No? Road closed? Hell.  Seriously – I drove around for 15 minutes trying to get within a mile of the damn place, but when it started raining I gave up.  Ridiculous.) after Joe got home from work.  As the four of us were walking away from the car, he broke out into TMBG’s Alphabet of Nations (“Zimbabweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”) Violet whipped around and said “Stop it!  Daddy! Please stop!” while looking left, right, north, and south to make sure nobody but us had heard him.

She was embarrassed.

The kid who used to encourage us to “Do the tushy dance!” in the middle of Target.  The kid who demanded countless songs and games waiting for food in restaurants.  The kid who has been putting the tiara she’s tired of on Joe’s head while walking through the mall for the past 5 years, was embarrassed.

Awesome.  Let the torture begin.

BURN!

After a very excellent dinner with no major revelations, I passed out little plates for dessert.  Here we have the conversation that followed (I am such a lazy blogger these days.  Why think up original stuff when I can just quote entire conversations?  But seriously – if this was what you were listening to at the dinner table, you’d be quoting it, too.)

Jonas: Hey! Why do the grown-ups have yellow plates, and the kids have blue?

Me: Um, I don’t know.  It’s just the way it worked ou….

Joe: It’s not the grown-ups VS the kids.  The smart people have the yellow plates.

Violet: Oh! Then I need to trade with Mommy!

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[At this, the man who had just spent 10 minutes explaining to her why she should be more polite to me, turned to her and said "Nice burn!", high-fived her, and then offered to handle bath-time so I could blog. If my life were a sitcom, I would be firing the writers about now.]

Angry Blogging

This morning Joe left for work without waking Violet up.

I lay there, listening to him pull out of the driveway, knowing that none of the three remaining people in the house had an alarm set, knowing that had I not been awake we would have been late for school, knowing that I was married to the most annoying individual on the planet.

I got her up, brought her to my bed, and we lay there together discussing what a maynerd her father is.

Me: I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your father is a maynerd.

V: Oh, I know he’s a maynerd.  He forgot to wake me up and give me a kiss!  Total maynerd.

Me: Should I call him so we can yell at him?

V: Definitely.

So I call him, and we lay there listening to his phone ring from the living room.

Me: I have bad news for you – your father is an even bigger maynerd than I thought before.

V: Yeah.  He’s kind of the biggest maynerd on the planet.  Sometimes I regret marrying him.

(Joe will doubt that last quote, but I swear I am not making it up. Those are the words that came out of her mouth, baby. )

Me: Whatever!  You looooove him!  You are a MAYNERD LOVER!

V: If I were a maynerd lover, then I would LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE you!

Me: Wait. So are you saying I’m a maynerd?

V: Yes.

Me: And you don’t love me?

V: What? No! I love you!

Me: AHA! So you ARE a maynerd lover!

V:  [rolls her eyes in an alarmingly teenage way]

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We gave him a half hour, then called his office phone.  Nobody picked that one up, either.  So now I’m venting onto wordpress, both for the joy of it, and because I figure maybe he’ll have some downtime at work today and will check Google Reader. If so -  Hon? You sold us out this morning.  If it weren’t for Jonas’s internal poop alarm that has him getting up to move his bowels at 6:30  every morning, V could have been late for school.  Also? You forgot your phone. And your daughter thinks you’re a maynerd. And I need to know if you are coming home early today to go to the SciPort with us, but I can’t get in touch with you. And I think you’re a maynerd, too.

Love,

Your Old Wife.
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[Full disclosure - Joe came home when I was only halfway through this entry. He had gone in early to run. The first thing he said when he walked in was "How late were you?" I had already started this, though, and figured why not keep going.  At this point, however, it's less "angry blogging" and more "mocking blogging".  Maybe tomorrow, if he's nice to me, I'll do "affectionate blogging."  But don't count on it.]

What?

So yesterday Jonas and I were walking to the library, and we were a bit chilly.  (Had we waited until today to go get new books, this conversation would have never happened.  It was 90 degrees and freaking humid today.  Yesterday? Jacket and boots weather.  Go figure.) We’re walking along with our hands in our pockets, wearing long sleeved t-shirts and jeans, and Jonas tells me he’s cold.

Me: Yeah, I know.  We need to buy you a hoodie.

Jonas: What?

(Now, right here you have to know this – Jonas wields the word “What?” like a samurai sword. That thing is quick and unexpected and lethal.  You can spend 10 minutes explaining something only to get the “What?” in return.  Or, you can tell him to do something over and over and over and over just getting “What? What? What? What?” back.  For a while I suspected the kid had some hearing loss, but my Stepfather has observed him in action and assures me he’s just doing it to annoy me.)

M: We need to buy you a hoodie.

J: What?

M: A HOOOOODIE! WE NEED TO GET YOU A HOODIE!

J: What’s that?

M: A hoodie?

J: Yeah.  What is that?

M: It’s like a sweater? Or a sweatshirt? It has a zipper down the front and is warm and has a hood that you can put over your head to keep your ears from being too cold. That’s what it is.

J: Oh yeah! What is that called?

M: …..

J: ….

M: A hoodie.

J: What?

Pest Poetry

So many roaches

lie on their backs, legs twitching.

Must have been some bomb.

.

Maybe the sellers

could have disclosed roach problem

before we paid them?

“I can’t control how I FEEL!”

So Violet has a boyfriend.  They draw each other pictures, and sit next to each other at lunch.

Yes, yes.  I know I haven’t written in a long la la looong time, and now I drop this bomb on you.  I realize I should at least update you on the move, V starting kindergarten, the great house-hunt of ‘09, the great house-remodel of ‘09, the school wanting to move V to 1st grade (good thing we said no – I’d hate to stand in the way of young love like that), et freaking c.  I know.  But if I worried about all of that, I’d never start blogging again – it would be an insurmountable to-do list.  It would weigh me down, and keep me from ever writing about the present.  And the present?  Is hysterical. The conversation around the dinner table tonight needed to be recorded now, while it was fresh in my mind.  Prepare to be either horrified or amused, depending on whether you are Violet’s father or not.

Today when I went to pick Madam up from school, her teacher was out there with her to say hi.  She leaned in and whispered that I should pay close attention to the artwork in V’s backpack today. “Romance is brewing in room four!”  Hmmm.

While we walk home, I unzip the backpack and find this -

Sean? Who the heck is Sean, and why have I never heard the name before?

At dinner, I encourage Joe to look in the backpack.  He comes out with the picture and reacts pretty much exactly as I’d hoped (“I love you SEAN?  WHO the heck is SEAN?”) V looks at him, and says in all seriousness..

V: Sean.  He’s in my class.

J: Yes, but who is he?  Is he your friend?

V: Ehhhh…

J: Is he your… (gulp)… boyfriend?

V: That’s how it feels.

That’s how it feels, people.  It feels like he’s her boyfriend.  She goes on to explain that they like to draw pictures for each other, they try to sit near each other at lunch, and they “try to get as close together as we can on the rug.”

At that last bit, one of Joe’s eyeballs bulged ever-so-slightly in its socket.

J: But you promised!  No boyfriends until you’re 35!

V: Daddy!  I can’t control it!  It’s just how I feel!

Me: She can’t control it, Daddy.

J: You shut it.

V: Besides! 35 is really, really old.

Me: That’s true.  If I had waited until I was 35 to get a boyfriend, I’d still be waiting.

J: Stay out of this, please.

V: Exactly!  How old were you when Daddy was your boyfriend?

Me: 19. (Oye, so long ago.)

V: Hmmm.  Well how old were you when you had your FIRST boyfriend?

J: It doesn’t matter how old Mommy was!  We had a deal!

Me: Um, do you mean like my first *real* boyfriend, like where he drove and picked me up and we went on dates and stuff? Or do you mean my first little-kid boyfriend where we sat next to each other and passed notes and were basically very good friends.

V: I mean your little-kid boyfriend.  But more than friends.  Were you connected?  Like me and Sean?

J: (strangling) CONNECTED!

Me: Hmmm. It was long ago, hon.  But I didn’t even have a little-kid boyfriend until…. 6th grade? Something like that.

V: Hm.  Well, I’m just starting earlier than you, I guess.  We love each other.

Joe: LOVE!

Me: Does he love you, too?  Or do you just love him?

V: He loves me.  He drew me a picture.

Rainbow, butterfly, flower.... blue sheep? If only I had a boyfriend romantic enough to draw me pretty pictures like this.

Me: Well.  Huh.  It must be real love, then.

J: [no longer capable of speech - vein on forehead pulsing like mad]

Me: Um, so when you say you like to be as close as possible…

V: Umhmmmmm…

J: something something HOMESCHOOL something something

Me: When do you mean, exactly? You mean at lunch? At the table during drawing time?

V: Yes. And on the rug.

J: Aggle flabble! Wumpy flappy!

Me: Yes. That. What rug? Do you mean at nap time?

V: No no no.  I mean during story time.  At rest time we have to lay in our assigned spots.  Mine is next to Devon.  I have no idea where Sean is.

J: [starts breathing again]

So that’s the news.  Violet is in love.  He loves her back.  They can’t help the way they feel.  They show their love through art, and sitting as “close as possible” to one another. The teacher approves (apparently, this Sean is quite a catch.)  V says he’s “very handsome, and in the smart group in the class”, so that must be good. Joe will probably survive this.  Maybe.

Not a baby anymore. Sniff.