The Walmart Incident

If we are friends on Facebook, you already know there was a Wal-mart incident.  Thankfully it was towards the end of my day, so we'll get there, but first things first!

I got my new camera!!!  It was a little torturous to wait while the battery charged.  I kept checking, and FINALLY was able to take some pictures. I might share those in the next post, haven't loaded them on the computer yet.

I had to wait for that orange light to switch to green.

Since I got to play with my new camera, I was in a generous mood, so when Kora found the Hello Kitty lunch box, that has a couple small gifts in it for her birthday, I went ahead and let her open it. The bigger stuff is hidden in our van, so I won't be tempted to give it to her early.

Opening her Hello Kitty box.

There was a Hello Kitty pen, a Hello Kitty hair bow, and this notepad in the box. She loves writing!

I had planned to take Kees on a special "date" to go shopping at the Disney store for "eye cars", those are the ones from the movie Cars.  We had to get rid of most of his toys when we left Thailand and he has Christmas money.  I guess he was tired of being out and about because he said I could just go and pick for him.   I was sad because I had my hopes up, but every time he doesn't want to do something with me, I get this feeling of panic. I guess I'm worried that every time that mood strikes, it means the end of mommy and son time. That maybe my sweet boy has outgrown me.  I was only slightly melodramatic about it. Doug assured me that he was just tired, and he'd want to go another time.  I channeled my upset into being dead set on just going with out him, thank you very much.  But as I was getting ready to go, I decided the shopping didn't matter, just spending time with him. And we could do that at home just as well. So we played ipad together and talked. Nothing special, but in a way, it was really special.

Snuggling a little

He's still my boy.

When Kora woke up, I decided to go to Walmart.  I have birthday money from Grandpa Boo and I was wanting to price the "eye cars" at Walmart. The other two main objectives, that I recited to myself several times were: "sport shirt, sport bottle".  Doug got me a cool water bottle for Christmas, but he uses it all the time, so I was gonna buy him one, or just let him have the other one and get myself a new one. I had found the exact one I wanted at Target, but I thought it would be cheaper at Walmart and decided to wait. NOT worth it!  And the shirts we were wanting were the OU Sugar Bowl Champion shirts. 

They didn't have the shirts, the toy section was OUT OF CONTROL, I wondered around at least 3 times feeling overwhelmed and closer and closer to crying. Nothing was in the right place, it looked like a tornado had swept through the store.  I realize it's not Walmart's fault that people don't put stuff back where it goes, but they should close the store once a week to fix the shelves.  Suffice it to say, I couldn't find anything I needed, there were people everywhere, nothing was priced correctly, it was getting late and I hadn't met my objectives. I knew they didn't have the shirts we wanted, but I had looked through the whole store and not found the water bottles.  I called Doug to ask where he had found the one he bought, and decided to give it one last shot. The shelf with the water bottles was a disaster area.  I could see where the bottle I wanted SHOULD have been and to find out if they were actually out of stock I had to comb through 3 shelves.  It took me 15 minutes, but I did eventually find a water bottle. It wasn't the color I wanted, but I was so dead set on getting one and it was all I could find, so I just broke down and bought it.  I never thought I would give up on Walmart, but that was a NIGHTMARE. I went home feeling sad, frustrated, and overwhelmed.  I usually go home from shopping, excited and ready to share about all the good deals I found. Not so at Walmart. I've decided that I save enough on groceries at Aldi, that I might just buy everything I can from there, and then shop at Target. I know I'll pay a little more at Target, but I think it will be worth it to not feel suicidal by the time I'm done.

Target, while costing more on most things, is well organized, much more subdued, and you can easily find what you're looking for.  I feel like Walmart hasn't always been this bad, and maybe it's just because of the holidays, but I won't be going back any time soon, unless I really have to.

I took this picture after I'd already attempted to move a few things back to their general location.  If this was a combed over clearance aisle I'd be more understanding, but this is just ridiculous!  I'm have a bad flashback now...

Walmart slightly redeemed itself as I moved toward the checkout and found THIS!

When I got back home, Doug was going to go hang out with his brother and had to rush out because I was blocking the garage where his mom parks. So I wasn't able to vent about my shopping experience, thankfully I had some Thai jasmine rice in the pantry, that helped.

My official review: for $1.50, this was worth it. If I was in Thailand, no way! You can get REAL stuff for less and it's way healthier. But I'm not in Thailand and Thai restaurants are pricey. There are plenty of great Thai food restaurants, but I can't afford to eat there every single time Walmart does me wrong, so this will do.  Whenever we finally have a place of our own, learning to cook Thai food is on my to-do list.