Today, I ventured into Wal-Mart with my brood at prime time for getting an errand done–past the lunch and running amok, and right before naps. I wish that I had, instead, stuck flaming pins into my eye.

Yes, I freely admit that I stepped into a Wal-Mart. A friend of mine who shall remain nameless, although her first name begins with ERICA, convinced me that this cool Wal-Mart in Reidsville has all the things I want, and cheap. Because of past experiences in Wal-Mart, and because I’m just a tad elitist, I’ve avoided the chain and haven’t suffered any horrible consequences thus far. But I figured I’d give it another shot. So there I found myself. In Wal-Mart. In rural North Carolina. On a Saturday. Now, maybe Wal-Mart is always like this. Or maybe I just happened to venture into this store on field trip day for all the crazies in all the state’s mental agencies.

One woman stood in my path when I was wrestling the 2.5 year old back into the seat in the cart while holding the 4.5 year old on my hip. She smiled crazily and said, “Oh, aren’t they pretty,” and I swear she was about to pinch their arms to see if they were fattened up enough to throw into her oven.

At this point, the kids become possessed. I have to battle my way through the toy section, detaching clutching fingers from trikes, threatening time outs, blackmailing, cajoling with promises of treats. I think there must be something in the vents at Wal-Mart. Some toddler consumerist stimulant piped in through the air conditioning, that made my normally very well behaved children act like spoiled ranting minions straight from the loins of Satan.

Sweat is starting to accumulate on my forehead and under my arms, and I can feel myself grinding my teeth. I lose my sense of direction in the vastness of this so-called SuperCenter, so I stop to ask a Wal-Mart associate for the location of the handbags. I think she may have been a zombie. Truly. There was this dead look in her eye as she pointed the way. And she could barely communicate the location, having, perhaps no word in her vocabulary like “aisle” or “row.” I expected her to all of a sudden come at me screaming “brains!”

So I’m off, after receiving some vague idea of where to go. But the voyage is long and wearisome. Where do these people come from who frequent Wal-Mart? Blocking my way in the aisles are people who walk side by side, in no particular hurry and completely unaware that there are, you know, OTHER people in the store who may have to travel in the same direction. People who stand in the middle of the aisle while reading the ingredients on a product, either ignoring me and my efforts to steer my cart full of wailing children around them or just being plain evil.

And THEN, as I’m coming out the door with tears streaming down both children’s faces, the 41 pound child in my arms and the 24 pound one clinging to my arms from the seat of the cart (barricaded in via the cart’s blessed leash), I see some woman CRAMMING two carts between her van and my Cherokee. I mean, PUSHING the carts between the two vehicles, scraping my truck! And when I finally get there, as I’m trying to get the lump of sobbing four year old into her seat, I see her back up and ALMOST HIT THE FUCKING CART MY BABY IS SITTING IN! Now, my cart was parked behind my truck, so she had to actually angle her behemoth of a van like a villainous idiot to even threaten the same latitude as my cart. So I run to save the child as the driver stops. I think, “Hey, she’s going to get out of her car and come apologize.” No. She stops, evidently to hand her elderly mother (in the passenger seat) a napkin FOR HER ECLAIR.

NEVER AGAIN, Wal-Mart. You keep your crazy. I’ll be saving my sanity in the Target around the corner.

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