Pearls of Wisdom and Foolish Mutterings

Mindless Drivel

I only have a couple of things to say tonight - really quick before the blog police show up on my doorstep and demand that I make an entry. I hate when that happens. I feel so violated.

I want Tor to hurry up and get back here where he belongs. I have a great "oxymoron" story to tell him. It's too good to hold on to, though,so I simply must tell you all. I was in my local WalMart the other day and got held up by the Basket Nazi - you know the one. She stands at the door and checks your basket on the way out, then draws the official yellow highlighter line on your receipt. Yep, that's the one. This particular Basket Nazi does her job with great zeal. Mind you, I am in there practically every other day, so she is accustomed to seeing me. Unlike a lot of other sneaky WalMart patrons who try to scurry past her as she is checking someone else's basket, I always roll my cart up beside her with my arm extended, holding my receipt out for her perusal. I get my standard yellow mark and I am on my way. Bada bing, bada bang.

Yeah, well not so the day my son was with me. He bought a giant-size bag of dog food for his giant-size dog and obviously, there are no WalMart bags that will accomodate giant-size bags of dog food. He's young and he couldn't care less about his receipt, so he didn't grab it after he checked out. I knew we were in trouble when we approached the door and I saw Basket Nazi standing there. Sure enough, she held out her hand like a stop sign (completely unnecessary, since I ALWAYS stop for her, but whatever.) She took my receipt and scrutinized it like she was looking for weapons of mass destruction on there. Then she wanted to know why the dog food wasn't on there. My son piped up and told her it was his and he didn't get his receipt. Sorry for the inconvenience, yadda, yadda.

Basket Nazi then tells him, "well, I have to have it." So I stood there blocking traffc, while my son went in search of his receipt, which he did not find, because I'm sure whoever was behind us in line accidentally grabbed it along with their receipt. Finally, he comes walking back to the doorway that I am blocking with Basket Nazi and tells her that he can't find it - it's gone. She says, "Okay then, go ahead." Well,that was nice and pointless. I guess she figured that since I didn't try to make a run for it with the receiptless bag of dog food, we must have actually paid for it. My son wanted to go back and ask her if 50 pound bags of dog food were high theft items. I wouldn't let him. I said, "Just be glad you didn't buy forks too or she would have never let us go." I mean, you have to know if you see someone leaving with a 50 pound bag of dog food and some forks that they are indeed stealing the dog food and are on there way to their car to chow down on that dog food.

However, that's not the oxymoron part. While I was waiting there for my son to traipse half a mile to the register where we checked out, I noticed that there was a sign tacked up on the closet door behind Basket Nazi. It had obviously been made and printed on a computer printer. This is what it said:

INCLIMATE WEATHER CLOSET
1)umbrella bags
2)umbrellas
3)rain hats
yadda, yadda, yadda

They should not let people print signs unless they are sure they know how to spell the words they will be using. I was in there again today and it's still there. Nice.

Did any of you see the movie "Napoleon Dynamite"? And if you didn't, why not? It's hilarious. Those of you who haven't seen it should just skip this next part because you won't get it:

I have chapped lips and all I've been able to think about all day long is, "My lips hurt real bad." In the Napoleon voice, of course.

Webster's Dictionary defines drivel thusly: to talk stupidly and carelessly. I ask you, is not the title for this entry spot-on perfect?