Walmart - 9:30pm

Last night I had to go back to Walmart for different paint.  The original color I had mixed was just too light for the bathroom.  I was tired and dirty but I really wanted to finish so I decided to head to Walmart at 9:30 last night to get more paint.  Let me start by saying that Walmart is not my favorite place.  I know that there are many a Walmart out there that are nice and clean and don't have crazy people working in them but mine is not one of those.  Since Walmart is the only store, besides Walgreens, that is open 24 hours a day, I was forced to go there for paint supplies.   I brought my gallon of too light paint and just wanted someone to mix it to it's darker shade.  No one was available.  A nice elderly employee came up to see if I needed help and then called the operator to have someone come over to mix my  paint.  She must have left the paint desk and come back five times before telling me the secret code to call the operator and that I should just call myself if no one comes in the next five minutes.  I now know how to call the operator from any phone in the entire store.  As i'm standing there, I start to wonder if the code is the same for every Walmart in the country.   That young middle school girl inside of me wanted to call it just to see if it worked.  I didn't.

A nice lady comes over to help but tells me that they can't make the paint darker so I just get another gallon and resign myself to figure out what to do with the nice paint that I won't be using on the bathroom.  Since she doesn't mix paint regularly, the process took forever.  I learned about her grandmother's recent home purchase and how the upstairs loft had a bathroom that was just for show.  She told me that the room had a sink, tub and toilet but absolutely nothing was hooked up and the room didn't even have plumbing.  In my head i'm thinking that her grandmother should have gotten her money back from the home inspector.  Then she told a story about a neighbor couple that got divorced because the wife cheated and got pregnant with her lover but never told her husband until one day they got in an argument and she blurted out that he was raising another man's child.  So, they got divorced and now he lives two houses away with his girlfriend.  Good stuff.  She even told me their names.  So, now I know the secret code to call the operator and the names of some poor couple that got divorced over a secret love child.  As she's telling me all this i'm looking around the store, wondering why on earth would so many parents have their children out so late on a school night.  There were more kids in the store at 9:45pm than there were at  9:45am.  Then I realized that it is spring break this week but still wondering why those kids aren't in bed already.  Then, because the paint lady is still talking, I start to wonder if those kids are homeschooled.  Before I got too far into that thought, the paint lady tells me she's all finished and I can go.  Thank you.  I just lost 5 years of my life standing at the paint counter. 

Since my mom requested a bottle of wine and the boys needed diapers, I headed that way.  As I got closer to the grocery section, there were even more children.  I think I was laughing on the outside because I was getting some funny stares.  It also could have been that I looked like I had been run over by the ugle truck before entering the store.  Or it could have been the contents of my cart.  Three boxes of diapers: size 6s, size 5, and overnights, a bottle of wine and two gallons of paint.  Party at our house!! 

I went to check out and had to wait in line.  Every open line had people waiting.  I started to wonder if I  had missed the announcement of some super duper sale going on that only shoppers got after 9:30pm.  The check out lady laughed at the contents of my cart and asked how many children I had.  When I told her she said that she would be drinking wine too.  She also told me that formula was really expensive.  I wasn't buying formula but I guess since I was buying diapers that comment was relevant in some way.  She asked how long I had been painting and then pointed out that I had paint all over me.  I told her I knew and that I knew I looked like i'd been run over by the ugly truck but that I really didn't think anyone would be in the store at this time of night.  She just smiled and told me that I had paint in my hair.  I'm  not sure that the look on my face revealed the exact thoughts in my head at that moment but she didn't say anything else to me after that. 

As I was walking out, the man behind the temporary Jackson Hewitt counter smiled and waved.  He was awefully happy for a man sitting behind a desk at 10:00pm waiting to do someone's taxes.  Who does there taxes in Walmart at 10:00pm, I wondered? 

As I drove home, I was filled with a strange excitement.  I dropped the wine off at mom's house, drove up the street and sat in the car for just a moment in the driveway.  I felt like I had experienced something unique during my time at Walmart.  If nothing else, I now know the code to call the operator from any phone in the store.