Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Keep The Riff-Raff Out!

It is impossibly cold outside. This winter has been horrible. We've had a range of 20 degrees to -60  since the day after Thanksgiving. On the rare days we have 20 degree weather, we have a 80 mile per hour wind with a -700 wind chill, so why bother having 20 degrees ABOVE? The big saying around here, mostly made by people who don't need to leave their houses on a daily basis is, "It's good. It keeps the riff-raff out." What is riff-raff you ask? Well, it's "ghetto folk", hobos, meth heads, and such. But the thing is, it doesn't get rid of the riff-raf. It just drives them indoors where everyone else is. I know this because I experienced it first hand during my last trip to Walmart. It all began on Sunday morning. I woke up with a pain in my stomach on the right, and it seemed right under my ribs. So, I did what every red-blooded American who understands technology does. I looked my malfunction on-line, where you should go for all medical advice. I self-diagnosed myself with gall stones. The remedy for gall stones is drink six ounces of apple juice for five days, because the apple juice makes the stones soft. On the sixth day, drink the apple juice, and don't eat after 6:00 pm. At 8:00 drink four ounces of water mixed with 2 tablespoons of Epson Salt, and repeat at 10:00. At 10:30 drink 4 ounces of olive oil mixed with two ounces of lemon juice. The Epson salt acts as a laxative and the olive oil makes it more slippery I guess. I think the Epson salt must give the concotion the explosive effect to help rid your body of the gall stones. I had everything except the Epson salt, which I didn't need until the following Saturday anyway. Yesterday it was only -16 degrees with a -25 wind chill and it was supposed to be the warmest day of the week, so I declared it my "Walmart/Target/Grocery" day. I typically don't go to Walmart, but the one by my school is a little classier Walmart. Even that sentence makes me giggle. Classy Walmart is an oxymoron, like non-dairy cream. Anyway, I needed more "Walmart" specific stuff than Target or Grocery store, so when it is this cold I only pick one store, and Walmart won. I parked my car at Walmart, making certain to look at which lane I parked in, because when the wind chill is -25, you don't have time to gallivant around the parking lot looking for your car. I walked into Walmart and immediately felt like I was in the ghetto. Yes. The ghetto of Fargo. I saw a 24-year-old mom with at least five kids I think. It was hard to count because they were all running so fast, but I know the two IN the cart were trying to get OUT, and at least three others were fighting to get in, and there were a few more climbing the shelves as she looked at Monistat. I wanted to grab a package of condoms off the shelf and throw them in her cart while she wasn't looking, but I knew one of the kids would tell on me and cause a bigger scene. I also wanted to assist the kids trying to get out of the cart before they fell, but then I thought 'oh well. Everyone needs a childhood scar story to tell. It would be unfair to rob these children of that.' I knew this woman was ghetto before she opened her mouth. Just because it's the frozen tundra of the north and she was wearing her WARM pajama bottoms and slippers doesn't make it any less of the fact that she is shopping while wearing pajamas. It could have been that, or her many screaming children, or the fact that she had dread locks, and the children looked like they haven't bathed in 2014, but it was probably the tank top that was too small and rode up, so it showed both her tramp stamp on the back, and her rolls on top of her rolls in the front. I wondered, 'where is her coat? It's fricken -25 out!' then I found it. Her five-year-old was wearing the hood of the mom's coat over her face and spinning around with her arms straight out. Hey- at least she was smart enough to try to keep her balance while knocking things out of the way with her arms instead of her head. Maybe she got the smarts in the family. After my entertainment went around the corner to terrorize an elderly couple in the next aisle, I went to work looking for Epson salt. I found it. It's also called bath salts. I read the package and in big letters it says DO NOT INJEST. How am I suppose to mix it with water so I can drink it up? I asked the pharmasist if they had Epson salt that can be injested. She looked at me funny and said, "No. They are BATH salts. Not salt, salt". Now I felt like the ghetto mom who had kids running around with my coat covering their face. I instantly remembered the situation in New York when the guy who injested bath salts ate off the hobo's face in the subway. Great. Now she thinks I'm that person. So I left Walmart thinking sure, leave it to Walmart to have the non-edible Epson salts. Target would have the right kind. Not regular Target, but Super Target would because if you want to injest bath salts and eat off someone's face, you wouldn't be shopping at Target. You'd go to Walmart. I paid for my extreamly cheep cleaning products and left to wander the parking lot looking for my car.

2 comments:

Debbie said...

I got some Epsom salt at Walmart in the section with ace bandages.

Deb

Debbie said...

Second thought... go to a doctor well before your vacation... just a suggestion :)

Debbie