421. Conversations at Walmart

I’m always good on a promise. Even to C.W. So when he went a week without making my wife’s head explode, I made good.

It’s one of his favorite things. We go Walmart. He shapes up like a lumberjack or something pretty close to it. We wander the aisles slowly and wait unit we hear a loud conversation, a one-way one. Not by just anybody. It has to be a certain type, a woman with a hoarse voice from a two-pack a day habit, wearing a baseball hat with a ponytail hanging out the back with a tight t-shirt emblazoned with something along the lines of “These Boobs Protected By Barretta.”

Yeah, I wasn’t going to say it, but you can. We have a lot of them around there and, yes, most necks are quite crimson.

So, what C.W. likes to do is sidle up to them as they yell into the phone, lean forward, and listen to the one side of the conversation.

No, it doesn’t work like you would think, not around here anyway. I've never seen one become angry. Occasionally they ignore him. More often, they nod, smile and welcome him into the conversation. We live in a friendly state, after all.

So yesterday was a fun trip, for him. We hadn’t been in the store for five minutes when we heard a sound like a corn-sheller going off, and words emerging from the noise. “Naw, I don’t care. Last time he let me use his pickup after we got done.”

Off we went. We got as near as we could, I pretended to look for Feta Cheese, which is a good way to waste time in Walmart. C.W. moved in alongside a tallish woman with dingy blond hair wearing a shirt with “Think Twice Before You Pat It,” in red spread across the back.” A drawing of two crossed baseball bats emphasized the point.

“Heck no,” she said into the phone. “Hit was for what we done Saturday night. He preaches on Sunday and uses his wife’s car. Only took two minutes, and I got a lot of things hauled off next day.”

She noticed C.W. then, smiled at him and nodded. She tipped the phone in his direction and motioned for him to listen.

“Hell yeah, it was a good swap,” she said. Then she and C.W. both laughed. He moved a little closer.

“Am I what?” Her eyes grew wide. She looked at C.W. and said. “Do I look like I’m ashamed of myself?”

He shook his head in a display of solemnity. “He agrees,” she said. “I got me a witness.”

She and C.W. both nodded and laughed.

“What?” She continued the conversation. “No,” she said into the phone. “Hit came regular as clockwork.” She winked at C.W. “So I reckon ever-thang was okay.” She listened for a moment. “You got that right, Hon,” she said. “I shore don’t need no new crumb-grabber slowing me down.” She looked at C.W. and he nodded. “Bet your sweet ass, though,” she said. “I ain’t using that brand no more.” He nodded in agreement.           

It went on like this for maybe ten minutes. People eased their carts by slowly, enjoying the snippets. I pulled my hat down as far as it would go and pretended to be invisible.

I love making new friends
among the Earthlings. - C.W.

We learned of her latest choice of laxatives. C.W. agreed.

We learned why she cut her old boyfriend off. C.W. agreed.

We learned that she wasn’t going let her daughter “git on them goddam pills until she was at least 14.” C.W. disagreed.

We learned of her plans to get a prescription for what she called “MM.” C.W. looked confused.

We learned that she considered “pollacks” the best lovers. C.W. took this in.

We learned that she wasn’t above one of “them two-on-ones” if she found the right two. C.W. smiled.

At long last, she said into the phone, “We gotta go, Hon.” After listening for a moment, she said, “Hell, I don’t know.” She turned to C.W. “What is your name, Hon?”

“Caspar Wolinski,” he said.

She nodded toward me, “He with you?”

C.W. nodded. I shook my head. Just at that moment, a neighbor I know walked by with one of the Walmart workers.

“Hey,” C.W.’s new friend shouted at the store worker, in her hoarse voice that I’m sure carried onto the parking lot, “Can you point me toward the condoms? And I want the kind that don’t break.”

See also:

Delta Dreaming

All Hat No Cattle

Enjoy these at all? If so, order Big Dope's Book at Wattensaw Press, Amazon, or other book sellers. It will make him so happy. Also, click on an ad. It earns him a little and costs the advertiser, sort of a win-win.

395. Shopping

It’s always interesting to take C.W. shopping. First of all, he picks his shape carefully. Once, he came to Walmart as a 300-pound woman in shorts that weren’t much more than red thong underwear with a tattoo on one leg that said. “God knows what,” and one on the other leg that said “you’re thinking.”

I usually make him walk ten feet behind me. Today, though, he seemed fairly normal … for Walmart. He looked as though he might have been a farmer once. He wore a “Make America Great Again” baseball hat and faded overalls. Where they had worn through, he had red patches shaped like valentines sewn over the holes. A pair of scuffed black loafers completed the ensemble.

Not bad for Walmart, as I say. We walked along together, that is until I stopped to examine a freezer of ribs. When I had decided they were too expensive, I turned and he was gone. Did I dare hope that some sort of “Alien Rapture” had occurred?

No such luck. I heard him call me. “Hey Big Dope,” he yelled from two aisles down. “Come listen to this.” When I tried to ignore him, he yelled it again. I had no choice but to ease my cart toward him.

I found him standing close to a heavy-set woman with stringy red hair talking on a cell phone. She wore shorts, the legs of which seemed to cut off any blood that might make an attempt to complete a complete circulation. A tank top allowed a large portion of her stomach to cascade over the top of her shorts.

She would have looked like a standard Arkansas bar-haunter except for a bright rose tattooed on her neck, the stem extending beneath her tank top. This made her look more like a standard Arkansas bar-haunter with an ill-conceived tattoo. Walmart stores are full of them.

Anyway, C.W. was leaning in listening to her conversation. As I approached, she yelled into it, “So I told him he could jist ferget about gettin’ any more off me until he come around and faced the music, and by god I meant it.”

C.W. pointed at her and said to me, “She’s missing something called ‘her monthly.’ Is that a check or something?”

I said nothing. The woman lowered her phone and pressed it against one meaty thigh. “Do you mind?” she said, “I’m talking here.”

“I don’t mind,” he said.

She started to say something. Then she looked at me and smiled. Two of her front teeth were missing and two were capped in gold. She looked at C.W. and nodded toward me. “He a friend of yours?” she said.

I left then, fast. C.W. followed along behind. As we walked away, I could hear the woman yelling into her phone again. “He can jist go waller around with one of them whores at ‘The Dance and Duck’ as far as I’m concerned."

We approached the baking goods section. As usual, there were a couple of elderly ladies parked there, examining the various cake mixes. As we passed them, C.W. said, “What does it mean when a woman says she missed her monthly?” Two heads snapped toward us.

I hurried on. When we reached the end of the aisle, C.W. pointed toward the personal care area and said, “I need to go over there. I’ll be right back.”

“No,” I said. “You’re not about to pull that one on me. You do remember that’s why you don’t get to come here with my wife anymore, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

 “You don’t remember yelling across the store to her that you had found the feminine products section?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Why indeed? I don’t suppose you remember stopping an assistant manager and suggesting that he display the Ramen Noodles over by the condom section either, do you? That store over in the college town? Ring a bell?”

“That couldn’t have been me.”

Big Dope is such a good husband, always
offering to go shopping for his wife. - C.W.

“Then who was it that suggested that same day that they move the Mountain Dew drinks over to the firearms section?”

“You must have me mixed up with someone else,” he said.

“Like the unknown person that slipped the ‘Day of the Week’ panties into my cart last time we came here?”

“Someone did that?”

I started answer, but he had stopped beside another woman yelling into a cell phone.

“This time,” she said to an unknown listener, “I let them keep him in there until he dried out. I told them I didn’t care if he was a deacon. If First Baptist wanted him, they could go get him.”

See also:
Delta Dreaming

All Hat No Cattle

Order Big Dope's Book at Wattensaw Press, Amazon, or other book sellers.

338. Shopping

People ask me how I manage an unearthly creature with a strange sense of humor. I tell them it isn’t easy. For example, I made the mistake of taking him to Big Mart yesterday. Never again.

He had assumed the form, usually one of his least troublesome, of Sanford the Senior Citizen. He wore shorts that stopped just above his knobby knees and a bright shirt with “Been There. Done That” printed across the top. A sporty hat of straw completed the look.

He usually converses in a plain and honest fashion when shaped up as Sanford. Honesty works at home, but not so well byond I found out to my dismay.

We did fine until we reached the vegetable section. Actually, it was the first place we reached as we began going counter-clockwise around the store. He stopped me there and demanded that we go clockwise. I patiently explained to him that one did not go clockwise through Big Mart, and he began to yell that he was much more knowledgeable about how to go through stores than I. A man behind us asked politely if we might take our argument elsewhere. We moved over and allowed him to pass. I heard C.W., Sanford, whoever, say, “Up yours sonny,” to him as he passed. I pretended to examine the cabbage.

We moved a few feet and were, ourselves, stopped by a woman talking on a cell phone. She spoke loud enough to be heard a block away, but C.W. eased up directly behind her, leaned in, and cupped a hand to his ear. I picked up a package of carrots and studied them.

The lady seemed to be talking to a friend about her husband, or boyfriend, one or the other, for she listened a moment and announced, “I told him he ain’t getting’ that stuff no more ‘til he straightens out. No sir.”

C.W. turned to me and pointed at her with a lewd grin. She listened to the phone, then spoke again. “I told him I didn’t know where that thang had been, so he could just keep it to hisself.”

At that point, C.W. took a large cucumber from a stack and offered it to her. “Tell him you done found a replacement for him anyway,” he said to her.

A large crowd and an assistant manager later, we moved over to the meat section. Another woman blocked our way, Words fail me in describing her. C.W. called her “the circle woman,” pointing out that her height and width radii were equal. She was wearing a short pullover and, evidently, nothing else. Did I mention that it was short?

A voice rang through the store. “Look at them hams,” I reversed direction and pretended I had never seen the speaker. I managed to avoid him until I turned into an aisle in the health goods section. There he was, maybe thirty feet away. He formed his hands into a megaphone and yelled at the top of his voice, “Hey, Big Dope. Here’s them Tampons you wanted.” Every head within hearing distance turned toward me.

I rushed over and pulled him aside. “This is not the place for jokes,” I said.

“That’s what Mrs. Big Dope said when I came with her,” he said. Then he grew serious, pointed toward the main aisle, and said, “If this is not the pace for jokes, explain that.”

I don't understand it. Big Dope doesn't cook, but
always heads for the cookware section. - C.W.

He pointed toward the sporting goods section at a man with a three-day growth of beard, and who had a Jim Beam hat perched back on his head. A dirty shirt with the sleeves cut out revealed half his midsection behind meaty arms. He wore cutoff jeans and high-top tennis shows that hung loose and untied. An enormous stomach protruded a good foot beyond the waistband of his jeans. The arm nearest us sported a tattoo of an unrecognizable creature of some sort with, barely readable below it, the words “Kiss me. I’m Irish.” He must have gotten the work done when he was a much thinner man.

“You’ve got a point,” I said to C.W. “Now let’s get out of here.”

“Wait one,” he said. “I’ve a marketing idea I want to pass on to this guy.” The same assistant manager we had met before walked over when C.W. beckoned.

“This is a college town, right?” C.W. asked.

“Why yes sir, it is,” the man said.

“Have you considered,” C.W. said, “the potential increase in sales if you were to stock the Raman Noodles and condoms side by side?”

Click on some ads. It costs them money and makes me some.

Also check out www.allhatnocattle.com

And buy Big Dope's book at Amazon

or  www.wattensawpress.com .

Ask the Alien ... banishment

Dear Ask the Alien:
My trip to Walmart yesterday started off wonderfully. My wife didn't accompany me so I was able to shop in the appropriate direction which, as everyone knows, is counter-clockwise. She has been known to, without consulting me or without even offering a "fare thee well," sail off in the wrong direction, to my great distress. This makes the "produce" section the last stop and creates a most unstable experience.
Anyway, I enjoyed my shopping. A young associate even listened politely to my suggestion that the Raman Noodles would best be placed alongside the condoms for more effective marketng. The world was a pleasant place.
Then ... catastrophe.
My cashier of choice wasn't working yesterday. Upon inquiry, I learned it was her day off and that they had failed to notify me beforehand. Consequently, I was forced to check out with a complete stranger. That's when it happened. This, this, this ... person began to rotate the grocery bag carousel in the wrong direction. Can you believe it?
Well believe this then. A screaming man attracts a good deal of attention in Walmart. After I explained her transgression, of all things I was told that I am banned from Walmart. I'm not sure if it is all Walmarts or just the one that is the appropriate distance from where I live, but I am devasted.
Please advise me as to how I can resume my shopping at Walmart.
Banished

Dear Banished:
On your next visit, wear a freshly laundered pair of khaki pants and white shirt with a fashionable tie. Polish your shoes, tend your nails. make sure any tattoos are covered. Brush your teeth and, if any are missing, keep your mouth closed. Make sure you are wearing your pants high enough to cover the upper terminus of your buttocks, that your hair has been recently cut, and you are sans baseball cap.
You will never be mistaken for a past Walmart shopper.
Your Friend,
The Alien.

Oh ... and ditch the ear buds and cell phone. - C.W.

See also: www.wattensawpress.com
www.allhatnocattle.com

269. Anniversaries

I took C.W. for a ride yesterday to get him out of my wife’s hair. Given a chance, he can start to annoy her. This time, he found an old photo album of her high school days and, using a secret process he calls “enphasing,” began to appear in the form of one after another of her old classmates. Just imagine what might go wrong.

Let’s just say that it was good to get him out of the house. I told him to take on the form, more or less, of a typical person you might see at Walmart. His first attempt wasn’t too good. He appeared as an unkempt man with a belly extending nearly a foot over his belt, a backward NRA cap, and a sleeveless tank top revealing tattoos on both arms, one stating “The South Rools,” and the other “Remember Gettisbirg.”

“Whut?” he said when I shook my head in disapproval. “I’ll fit right in.” He picked at his nose. “Better’n you anyway. Remember the time you wore your ‘Support Our Public Schools’ tee-shirt and they asked you to leave?”

“Back,” I said. “Try again.”

“This time he looked quite a bit like an old Navy buddy from a photo of the two of us after we had used our day off to visit some enlisted clubs. I frowned in disapproval but let it slide.

Once in the car, he instantly started to get on my nerves.

“What’s wrong with Mrs. Big Dope?  

I just looked over at him and said nothing.

“Did you mix paint with her favorite measuring cup again?”

It didn’t seem worthwhile to respond.

“Don’t tell me you spilled more wine on her ZZ Top CD.”

“No,” I said, “and that wasn’t me, if you will remember. Someone lied about it.”

He ignored me. “You didn’t badmouth Matthew McConaughey did you?”

“Could you ever imagine,” I said, “that it might be something you did?”

“Me?”

“You.”

He didn’t speak for almost a minute. “Can’t imagine a thing.” He said, after the pause.

“That last shape you took.”

“Oh,” he said, “that real pretty girl with the big …”

“That’s the one.”

“Weren’t they good friends? I mean back in high school?”

“Hardly.”

He truly seemed dumbfounded. “Why … what … how could it be? You mean they weren’t best friends?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“They didn’t like each other?”

“Bingo.”

“What was the the cause, explanation, or justification for the action or event?”

“The reason, as I understand it, was a boyfriend. I learned long ago not to ask.”

“She had another boyfriend before you?”"

“Well yeah,” I said, mimicking the young folks.

“How could that be? You’ve been married for how long now?”

“Tomorrow marks 43 years,” I said. “That’s where we are headed: to buy her a gift.”

And Big Dope tells me that you see
some weird-looking people at Walmart. - C.W.

“Hey,” he said. “Maybe she would like a new Astrocelestial Sound Synthesizer. You know how much she likes to mimic that woman with all those kids.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I read where the women in California all want a new A…”

I cut him off. “Forget it,” I said. “I think she wants a new tool box and a set of metric wrenches.”

“A true romantic,” he said and we continued in silence.

Later, at Walmart, I had to rush over and intercede when I heard him tell a vacant-eyed adolescent “associate” that he wanted to buy a card for “the yearly recurrence of the date of a past event.”

Would anyone like to keep an alien for a while?

Click some ads. I spent all my money on an anniversary card.

Oh, and see www.wattensawpress.com

And ... www.allhatnocattle.com

Finally, buy Big Dope's book so he'll shut up about it.
- C.W.

Available at major on-line retailers, or
www.wattensawpress.com

Shopping

Dear Friends and Followers

Big Dope is out “fat walking” so I take this opportunity to communicate.

As a public service, I am preparing a draft re-write of the Arkansas Criminal Code. I could use suggestions for §(a)(B).201-Shopping. An example: for the crime of blocking the aisle in a supermarket while talking on a cell phone, should the punishment be a few years of hard time or a long sentence of house arrest? Another: for parking with one set of tires on the line of the parking stall, would 500 hours of community service be sufficient? I’m thinking a six-month sentence for the crime of waiting until the cashier announces your total before beginning to rummage in a purse looking for a checkbook or a wallet for a credit card. Fair? Men shopping without a Certificate of Graduation from Husband School would be permanently barred from the venue, freeing up a lot of everyone’s time. Sound appropriate?

Finally: I am proposing that the following be posted at conspicuous locations in all stores.

 

RULES FOR SHOPPER BEHAVIOR

1. IF YOUR POSTERIOR IS WIDER THAN YOUR SHOPPING CART, PLEASE WALK SIDEWAYS THROUGH THE AISLES.

2. PLEASE KEEP ALL WEAPONS CONCEALED UNLESS ACUALLY OBSERVING A SHOPLIFTING IN PROGRESS..

3. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM DISCUSSING THE FOLLOWING ON CELL PHONES AS YOU SHOP:

- VISITS TO PHYSICIANS

- PREGNANCIES

- ARRESTS OF CHILDREN

- SORRY HUSBANDS

- BOWEL MOVEMENTS

- SEXUAL ACTIVITY IN GENERAL; FREQUENCY THEREOF IN PARTICULAR

4.  THIS STORE IS NOT OBLIGATED TO STOCK ANY ITEM OR BRAND THAT YOU MAY HAVE PURCHASED PREVIOUSLY SO DON’T ASK.  (WALMART OUTLETS ONLY)

5.   A MAXIMUM OF FIVE CHILDREN MAY RIDE IN A SHOPPING CART AT ONE TIME.

6.  SHOPPERS TASTE-TESTING FRUIT SHOULD NOT RETURN PEELS, CORES, SEEDS, OR OTHER REMNANTS  INTO THE DISPLAY BINS.

7.  PLEASE TAKE WRAPPERS FROM CANDY CONSUMED BY YOUR CHILDREN WHILE SHOPPING TO THE CASHIER TO BE ACCOUNTED FOR AT  CHECKOUT.

8.  PLEASE COVER ALL TATTOOS EXPRESSING DEATH THREATS TOWARD THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WHILE SHOPPING AT THIS STORE.

9.  PLEASE REFRAIN FROM CONVERSING WITH OTHER SHOPPERS WHILE CHECKING OUT.

10. PRACTICAL JOKES SUCH AS PLACEMENT OF CONDOMS, LAXATIVES, OR FEMALE UNDERGARMENTS IN ANOTHER’S CART ARE STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.

As always, I wish you a feeling of happiness day. (Editor’s note: He, of course, means “pleasant”).

Remember: it is vital that you get a
clear line of fire when making
a "Citizen's Kill." - C.W.

Your Friend.

C.W.

Also: Check out www.wattensawpress.com