SEE MAN

I am not a frequent Walmart goer. In fact, almost every time I go anymore I end up saying over and over and over again in my head while I search in vain for another ill-placed item "I hate Walmart, I hate Walmart....". But no matter my feelings on the illogical, frustrating set up of their store, their notoriously bad service (I speak only of OUR LOCAL Walmart here), or the fact that everyone walks at the pace of a handicap turtle right in front of you acting like they have no idea at all that anyone else is in the store trying to get groceries and not just there for their afternoon walk.

Now that I got that off my chest... regardless of my feelings about it, we simply had to head over there last week in search of some decent priced curtains to hang in the future nursery/Bernadette's room.

We entered the store and pretty much immediately came in contact with a fairly life-sized batman statue-ish thing which was being used to display Mountain Dew. Bernadette began insisting that we go over to it, and I thought it seemed harmless, so we stood in front of it for a second before I said that we must keep moving so as to get in and out of this h-hole asap.

As soon as we walked away she started demanding to go back and "SEE MAN." To which I would reply, "As soon as we're done with shopping, we'll see him one more time." To which she would reply, even louder and more urgently, "SEE MAN, SEE MAN!!" I kept responding calmly for the first 30 seconds at least, but then it started to get a little annoying. We were retrieving our 2nd or 3rd item when she shouted for the 100th time, "SEE MAN, SEE MAN!!!" and I had had it. "No Bernadette, we are not here to see a Batman statue, we are here to get groceries. We are not going back to see that man!" And, that was it.

I can usually manage meltdowns in the grocery store with my purse stash of juice/crackers/fruit snacks/pacifiers/blankies/etc., but all my efforts were in vain- this just broke her. No more promise of "SEEING THE MAN," how could she bear it? I hurried as quickly as I could through the store, purchased my items, somehow calmed her with some check-out line twizzlers--but no reunion with her beloved "MAN"--and we left. Thank God, we were done. We were slated to head to the Mall play place that day, but the trip was canceled on account of my voracious hunger and Bernadette's overly volatile emotions.

As it turns out,  the curtains stunk and we had to go back to Walmart AGAIN yesterday, and what a sweet, sweet reunion it was. Without saying a word to Bernadette about it, we walked in the store and she started immediately, "SEE MAN, SEE MAN!" I assured her that as soon as we got what we needed, we would go and see him, and, her emotions being much more in check (probably as a result of some separation from the high emotions that this relationship clearly evokes), she was ok with this deal. We retrieved some curtains (which thankfully work, so that I will be going nowhere near that store again for as long as possible), and then we stopped to see. the. man.

Oh, the JOY!!!!!!!

And the only thing that pried her away was the enormous box of fruit snacks purchased to be eaten in the car. They will probably never see each other again, but it was a match made in heaven, or at least Walmart. Same thing, right?