Yay for Wal-Mart! Sort of.

A new Wal-Mart just opened up by my house. I went there this morning. It started out really nice. Everything was new and clean. I learned the new layout. Everything was good. I went to the check out line. There were several check out lines opened up. Hardly any lines at all. Yay! This should be so fast! I chose one with 1 person in the line. Her stuff was placed up on the belt. I waited patiently for her stuff to start moving so I could put mine up there too. The cashier didn't have the belt set to move forward. It felt like forever, but finally it started to move. I looked for one of those separators to put between my stuff and hers. There weren't any. Oh, there they are. Two of them. The lady in front of me has them both. She has 3 transactions. By the time her first group is done she realizes she bought too much. She starts looking through her bags to take things off of her bill. Search, search, find. Beep. Search, search, find. Beep. She removes about 5 items. Still trying to think positive, I think, "Well, at least she is good and sticking to her budget. That's what I should be more like." Then her next two transactions are WIC. Hello, this is a new employee. She doesn't know how to do crazy stuff like that. Take your WIC stuff to an older Wal-Mart where they know how to do it. Just kidding. I guess they need to learn here too. I look in the lanes next to me. Lines three people long come and go before my eyes. One person is in line behind me. We haven't moved for a very long time. Oh wait, the person behind me is leaving now. I can't leave since my stuff is all up on the belt. I guess I can leave but I know as soon as I get all my stuff back in the cart, the line will move forward. Another person gets in line behind me. We still don't move for ages. She ends up leaving too. The lady in front of me is spinning her child around making a piercing noise. I want to plug my ears, but I don't. Her two older kids steal balloons from the nail salon's opening day display. The lady starts playing a new game with her baby, where she goes close to the debit card machine and then pulls him away saying, "DON'T GET IT! DON'T GET IT!" as loud as she can. Over and over. Does she think we can't hear her? The whole store hears her! Finally she jams her baby's fingers on the machine so he starts crying. A beautiful crying noise instead of her crazy lady voice. I look at the lanes next to me again. Entire lines have come and gone again. Finally she is done! My turn! Wow, I don't know how they do that WIC stuff but it sure takes a long time. The whole time being in the line I am holding my toddler, since she is done with the cart, and my arms are starting to feel like lead. My transaction moves quickly and I get everything put back into my cart. I toss one final bag under the bottom so it doesn't squash anything. Pushing the cart one-handed is not easy. Especially when I get outside on the slightly slanted parking lot. The cart keeps pulling toward the cement curbing and I have to steer it with one hand and one foot. Finally I get too close to one of the curbs and it bumps a little. The bag on the bottom spills open and items roll out onto the parking lot. I put down my toddler and warn her to stay by me as I clean up my items. A Wal-Mart employee walks by me and watches me put my things back into the bag. "Thanks for your help," I think in my head. Exasperated, I get everything put in my car and buckle up the baby. WHEW!!

I definitely need an attitude adjustment. But why, oh why, do I always choose the lane that takes half an hour?!