Late night: Walmart!

After working a 12 hr shift today and knowing that I've signed up for tomorrow's night shift, I am purposely trying to stay awake until 3 or 4 am so that I can sleep as long as I can tomorrow. That being said, the exhaustion is starting to hit me, but in the midst of fighting it off I have learned one way of staying awake: taking a late night trip to the all-wonderful Wally World.

After getting over the fear of running into the creepy bums, this worked out great being that 1) I needed groceries, and 2) I needed necessities. Starting out with the latter so as not to have melting frozen foods while perusing the shampoo section, I headed towards deodorant. After picking up a few items in this aisle and the ones surrounding, I decided to leisurely stroll towards the clearance section (my favorite). Here I looked at things from dental flossers, to discount wedding champagne glasses, to everyday planners. While I thought about clearing them of their half-off stickers for scrapbooking, I begrudgingly chose otherwise.

Next, it was off to the silverware as ours is getting rusty and its time for new (sadly, it's only been 2 years!). At this point, I start to catch myself dazing at products, and have to snap myself out of a trance so as not to let the poor dutiful workers slack on the job by staring at me thinking I needed help (in more ways than one). Deciding I have not shopped and compared enough in this area to narrow my choices down to one, I leave this section empty handed.

Next stop, books. I picked up a soft cover copy (to match the others I have) of Eclipse so that I can finally return my dear friend Missy's. The best part of this is it was $8.97. Yay! Can't beat that! Though, no Breaking Dawn was to be found, which saddened my mood slightly. Poo. Enough of books. Magazines! Yes! A little gossip never hurt anyone, right? Oh, what's that...Jessica Simpson is having a baby with ex football player Eric Johnson? Oh, the scandal. lol

Now, 30 min have passed and I'm starting to notice they've downsized the checkout lines from 4 to 2. Hm, maybe I better pick up the pace just a bit. Oh wait, I don't care how long I take. I'm tryyying to stay awake, remember? This is strange, this not rushing kind of atmosphere. (random thoughts from late night Tandra's brain, I apologize.)

This time of night is great since there are fewer shoppers, but the one downfall is that there are pallets of boxes full of stuff in every aisle, making it practically impossible to get around (or not bump into...hey I can't walk straight even if I'm not lacking sleep. don't judge!) This posed yet another embarrassing scene, I'm sure. At this point I'm giving free entertainment away. Even if I didn't look younger than 40, I'm sure they would've carded me just for my weaving in the aisles had I bought liquor.

Anyway, once I got to the food section, I really seriously did need to stop dragging my feet so that I could get the milk and sour cream home. Choosing the shorter of the 2 checkout lines, I chose wrong, as usual. Judging poor Granny who was checking out the customers, I got frustrated. How hard can it be to run a handwritten check through the machine?! Seriously. Oh well, may as well make the most of it. More magazine time!

But then as my turn finally came around, I set my purse on the counter and asked her how she was doing and she scanned my items. She then replied, "Probably better than I deserve to be," with the sweetest, ever so genuine smile on her face. Oh man...how do you respond to that? Of course I reassured her that she certainly did deserve to be doing that well. Another smile. Aw. What a doll! I just wanted to take her home with me now!

Though I refrained from stuffing Granny in my Coach bag on the way out, I soon realized that the majority of my purchases were junk food. Great job, Tandra. Your bank account and your tight jeans will not thank you later!

Last thought on late night Walmart runs, do not go on an empty stomach.