March 31, 2005

why I hate WalMart

No, it’s not because they engage in reprehensible labor practices. Nor is it because they play Christian television in the baby section (message: the children of working mommies go to hell! the children of mommies who shop at other megastores go to hell! buy our crap or your baby is going to hell!), or even because, despite the low-income demographic of the majority of WalMart shoppers, they charge MORE than comparable chains (Target, KMart) for infant formula. And no, it’s not because the lighting triggers a Pavlovian response in my children that turns them from smart, charming little boys into screaming banshees. No, it is none of those things.

It’s the surly people who work there.

I ran in to my local Super WalMart this morning, to buy bananas and flip flops*. (The bananas were for Charlie, who is still mad that Wade took THE VERY LAST BANANA in our house to work with him YESTERDAY–he keeps saying, ‘Why did Daddy take my banana?’ like he’s being starved to death.) I also decided, while I was there, to try on some sweats and a swimsuit (don’t think too hard about that–I’m not going to talk about the whole WalMart dressing room/swimsuit part of my morning, so get over it).

In this particular WalMart, the woman who persons the dressing rooms also answers the phone. Each time it would ring, she would make an announcement over the PA system to alert the appropriate employee that he or she had a phone call. These announcements went something like this:

Dressing Room Attendant/Operator (yelling over the PA system as loudly as she could): ‘PAM IN HUMAN RESOURCES YOU HAVE A CALL ON LINE TWO!!!’

Of course, the yelling made it nearly impossible to understand what she was actually saying. As I was trying on various sizes of swimsuits and sweats (do not think about it!) and trying not to let any of my skin/clothing touch the floor in the dressing room (or the clothes, come to think of it), Crazy Dressing Room Lady continued to yell over the loudspeaker: ‘PAM! IN HUMAN RESOURCES! YOU HAVE A CALL!!! ON LINE TWO!!!!!’ This went on for a good ten minutes (the ENTIRE time I was in the dressing room, no kidding). I was really starting to fear for Pam in HR’s life–after all, Oklahoma is a concealed weapon state, and this woman was clearly pissed.

I gathered up my stuff, thinking that I should really get as far away from this whole bad scene as possible. As I hung my sweats and swimsuits (none of which ‘worked out’) on the rack, Crazy Dressing Room Lady dialed the phone and said in a calm, polite voice: ‘Is Pam in this morning? Could you let her know that she has a call on line two? Thank you!’

But then, as I was checking out, the same woman came on the PA system: ‘LATISHA! YOU HAVE A CALL ON LINE FOUR!!!’ LaTisha happened to be ringing up my flip flops; she turned toward the part of the store where the dressing rooms are located (NOT near the checkout counter) and yelled, ‘Line four?’

And Crazy Dressing Room Lady yelled back (withouth the PA system), ‘Yes! Line four!

*It kills me to say it, but WalMart has the GREATEST flip flops in the entire world. They are rubber and flat and are super comfy, and they come in fabuous colors. I bought one pair of pink with daisies and another pair in black, with pink and white polka dots. FOR $1.94 EACH. You cannot beat that. I’ll be going back for two more pair, soon.

listen up, Jeb!

Here is my Advance Health Care directive, for anyone who cares.

Should I happen to wind up in a Persistent Vegitative State (the kind NOT caused by television, mind you), I want the following: I wany any and all useful organs donated. I want to be cremated. I want my husband (or some other responsible member of this family) to spead my ashes somewhere in the mountains in New Mexico.

If my brain is dead, I do NOT want extreme measures used to keep me breathing. No life support. No feeding tube. If I can’t help myself to thirds of my mother-in-law’s new peas and potatos in cream sauce (mmmmm . . . ), there’s no point in going on. Unless there is REAL hope that I will someday SOON (soon like Henry and Charlie mean it, not soon like in the indefinite future after we get over this whole stem-cell-research-is-the-same-as-murder thing) hug my children, read a novel, or spin a new theory about why the Republicans hate Hillary Clinton so damn much, unplug me.

Should my wishes, for whatever reason, not jibe with the political agenda of any member of Congress who chooses to overlook the REAL problems in our world today in favor of dicking around in what is after all a PERSONAL matter, I wish the following: I would like to be put in the custody of Jeb Bush (or, really, any member of his extended family, except for Barbara and Jenna) and allowed to live out my days in Kennebunkeport. And just in case I have some brain function left that all the smart doctors and their wildly advanced machines can’t distinguish, I am saying now that while I persist in my vegitative state, waiting to recover, I want a really nice room, with furnishings exclusively from Pottery Barn, and I want a manicure and pedicure every week and a massage every three or four days. Paid for by Jeb. Forever.

Thank you, Internet, for witnessing this directive.

the last word on Warner

Here is what I really wanted to say, what I was trying to say, about Judith Warner’s book:

I have a great life. I have a husband who works–hard–to pay the bills so that I can be ‘at home’ with our children, a situation we chose together and which neither of us regrets. I have healthy, smart, charming kids, a nice house that we are actually paying off, good health care, and enough money left over for private school and some day care and the occasional friviolous trip to Target or Pottery Barn.

BUT . . . I am always exhausted. I am thin (but not in a good, healthy way). I am often short with my children. I am overwhelmed by laundry, housework, bills, doctors appointments, playdates and grocery shopping. While my husband sleeps soundly at night I lay awake worrying that Henry isn’t holding his pencil the right way and that Charlie is wasting away in day out and really SHOULD be in the same very very expensive preschool as his brother. I worry about what will happen when I go back to work, and what exactly I think I’m going to DO when I go back to work. I spend my days changing diapers and buckling car seats and saying idiotic things like ‘Can you use some nice words?’ And I fall into bed at the end of every day dreading the alarm and the beginning of the next round of worry and stress.

My friend Leslie jokes about our lives. She calls, pretty much every day, at the same time, after lunch, when the boys–hers and mine–are all napping. ‘What are you doing?’ she asks when I answer the phone. ‘Loading the dishwasher,’ I nearly always say. Sometimes she will say, ‘What are you doing? No, let me guess–you are . . . having a pedicure! Reading a book! Curing cancer!’ All equally unlikely.

I’ve tried for a long time to really live the Zen of motherhood, to remind myself that mindfulness comes through repetition, and that the more repetitive and mindless the task, the greater the opportunity for true insight. But let’s face it, there is nothing mindful about the lives of small children. They are loud and wild and demanding, and they don’t understand the idea of ‘quiet time’ as anything but punishment. And so, instead of being mindful, I am stressed and cranky, and I turn on the TV to get away from my kids (which makes me feel guilty which makes me cranky) and I get up at 5:30 in the morning to have just a little bit of time alone (which makes me more tired and cranky and . . . you see how this goes).

And I feel bad–terrible, horrible–about complaining about any of this because I am so fortunate and I do have such a wonderful life. But this wonderful life is wearing me down and making me sad.

THAT is what I think Judith Warner is really trying to say.