See, K-Mart, this is why you suck.

Good afternoon!



K Mart Sucks...and now I know why.

I love the movie "Rain Man."  If you haven't seen it, you need to.  Go, right now.  Rent it, buy it, see if Netflix will let you stream it.  I'll wait. 

Okay, now that you've caught up, I was in college when Rain Man came out and I always thought they were a little harsh to that department store giant, K-Mart.  When I was a kid, we'd go to K-Mart when we were doing gift shopping or special shopping.  I loved the announcements for blue light specials.  I'd run around the store, at the risk of infuriating my mother, so that I could find the blue light and BE THERE when they said "Shoppers for the next ten minutes the blue light special will be No Nonsense pantyhose!"

I'll be honest, though, since I got older, and Walmart showed up in every town, and then Target started selling groceries, and Sam's Club sold me cheese pop corn by the drum, I haven't spent a lot of time at K-Mart.  I understand they've been going through a bit of a downturn lately, which is a shame.

At least I thought so, until I stopped at one this morning.

I needed a loaf of bread, some cat food, and a roll of birthday wrapping paper.  (Today Skippy turns 20.)  I didn't feel like making a trip out of may way for any of these things, and K-Mart just happened to be where I was.  So I stopped in for these three things.

And that's when I found out why K-Mart sucks.

In case the owners of K-Mart aren't aware, I will share my shopping experience with you all.

I stopped at the store at about 10 AM.  The store, according to the sign, opened at 8 AM.  Apparently, however, the automated doors didn't open until sometime AFTER 10 because as I was walking briskly into the store I aimed for the automatic doors.  I have issues with opening doors.  I also have issues paying attention to whether or not a door is open.  See, it's an automatic door which means when I'm near it it should OPEN automatically.

That didn't exactly happen.  At all.  I about smashed my face into the door.  And then I did that dance, that side to side dance to see if I could activate the door.  No dice.  So I pulled open the other door and went in.

The store was abandoned, which was fine by me since I have no patience for crowds.  I found the cat food and the wrapping paper right away.  All I needed was bread.  A loaf of bread. That's it.

Fifteen minutes of searching and I realized one thing: K-Mart had more shelf space devoted to Toffifay candy than they do to BREAD.  Don't remember what Toffifay candy is? Don't feel bad.  No one does! 

I eventually found bread...sort of.  There was a basket of reduced loaves of bread.  $2 for some no named loaf of paste white bread.  See, I was looking for something with maybe some fiber...or flavor.  I was NOT looking for an expired loaf of store brand glue.  And friends, that was literally the only bread, the only bread like anything in the store.  There were no bagels, no English muffins, no other breads of any kind in that building.  Two rows devoted to soda and chips...one shopping cart for expired bread. (Where's Michelle Obama...why isn't she picketing K-Mart?)

Well, armed with two of the three things I needed, I headed to the checkout.  This is a store that had, according to the signs, been open for more than two hours.  There was not ONE LANE OPEN.  Not one.  I

couldn't find anyone willing to admit they worked there.  In fact, after wandering around for five more minutes, I actually set my stuff down on an open shelf  (there were a ton of them) and I was about to leave when on single lane light popped on.

The woman scanned my items and asked me if I had a membership savings card.  I said, politely, "no."  What I wanted to say was, "Why would I want to admit I shop in a store where the employees are hiding from the customers who aren't here?"

I noted that this particular branch of K-Mart is hiring. I'm just putting that out there.

The Wedding was perfect...we are not...#2

Good evening!

So after the drama of the previous night, we looked forward to Rehearsal dinner Day.

Now for those of you who have never been in a wedding in the US, the Rehearsal Dinner is the meal that follows the Rehearsal which is theorhetically the run through of the wedding so that no one, like the groomsmen, the bridesmaids, the minister, the groom, whatever, screws up the Bride's big day.

Rehearsal  Dinner Day, for most of us, Hubby, Parker, and I, was planned to be a quiet day of sightseeing followed by a dinner at the venue.   We had no idea where the venue was because 1)  Neither of us had actually looked at the invitation since February and 2)  Peaches, the bridesmaid had never actually seen the invitation.

So, first order of business...free breakfast at the hotel.

Why do hotels offer free breakfast, and then close it up by 10 AM?  That's like making check out time 11 Am, it's just wrong.  It doesn't take into account what most people use hotel rooms for...messing around until late at night and then sleeping in.

So we were about the last people to show up for the free hotel breakfast.  That meant we had a choice of toast...and toast.

No worries, the coffee was adequate.  We planned on doing some shopping and sightseeing and what not.

And then Peaches announced she was getting picked up by the maid of honor to pick out the flowers for hte wedding.  Oh, and we had to be at the rehearsal because we were driving Grandma, so we all had to be at the venue by 4.

After you get five people of different generations moving in the same direction at once you realize you have about 90 minutes to sight see before you have to get the five people moving in another direction.

Side note:  The maid of honor couldn't give us the name or address of the wedding venue either.  I'm just sayin'.

We got to the venue...five minutes late due to the fact that apparently when it rains in North Carolina all traffic on the highway STOPS moving, and it was lovely.  IT was some sort of resort house/palace where everything smelled amazing.

The rehearsal took about twenty minutes, which was good since the Bride's mother, Hubbby's sister  (A master chef in her own right) forgot she'd left the beans to cook on the stove.  The rehearsal ended when she yelled, "THE BEANS" and ran back into the house. 

The meal that Sis in law and her husband put together was pure Wisconsin, with some flair.  We had corn on the cob, watermelon, brats, beer, wine...more beer, more wine.  The flair was a great green bean and bacon dish and crab rolls...yum!

One of the bridal party...we called her an assortment of names based on the clothes she wore, imbibed a tiny bit too much. How do I know?  When she was looking for the wine opener to uncork yet another tankard of wine for herself, she referred to Parker, a fifteen year old boy, as her "Sexy little monkey."

Meanwhile, Sis in law made fried cheese curds.  For those of you not familiar, well, clearly you haven't read my book "Dream in Color"  So now you must go to Amazon and buy it...right now...I'll wait...

Anyway, deep fried cheese curds are simply the best food you're ever going to eat.  Ever.  Period.

It is as this point I should remind you that I'm one of those women who doesn't eat food so much as wind up wearing what she's had for dinner.  Soup, salad dressing, sandwich toppings, meatloaf, whatever, if I'm aiming for my mouth, a portion of it can, and will, fall onto that handy shelf 18 inches below my chin.  I'm telling you this because hubby, in a fit of romantic passion, fed me a deep fried cheese curd, and about half of it wound up on that shelf.

Except I was wearing a dress.

I don't wear dresses.  I don't like how dresses tend to accent the super gut I'm building on myself.  But I figured I'd wear a dress.  So the cheese curd went down the neckline of the dress...through the gap between my new and therefore still stiff bra and my cleavage, past my waist, which was unencumbered by a belt or waistband since I was wearing a dress, past my knees and onto the floor.

Sort of like an elevator ride through hell and onto the ground.

There is no way you can emerge from something like that gracefully.

So I didn't.  I continued having a conversation with my neice, and I kicked the cheesecurd away from me...I think it went under the fridge.  I have no way of knowing.

After the cheese curd debacle, I decided to eat a brat.  Rather, I decided to eat half a brat.  Given how I've pretty much fallen off the vegetarian wagon Hubby and PEaches ride, I've indulged in chicken, fish, and the occassioinal hot dog.  But I haven't had Wisconsin's claim to culinary fame, the brat.   I only ate half a brat.

We had a lovely time, but by 8 Pm it was time to go. We had a couple things to get before the wedding  (most important was a pair of shoes for me.  Oddly enough, when the Bride told Peaches to wear flats to the outdoor wedding, I didn't think that applied to me, in my dress.  After navagating the grounds all evening, I realized...style be darned, I was going to be crippled by the end of the wedding if I didn't get some flats.)

So we went to the place where everything is possible:  Walmart.

As we got out of the car to go to Walmart, Parker said, "I think I forgot my phone...at the venue."

Let's remember this for the next chapter, shall we?

So Hubby and mother in law agreed to run back to the venue while the children and I got some snacks  (wine)  and looked for shoes.

Ten minutes into our shopping spree...I realized that my system hadn't quite gotten used to meat yet.

Especially not the spicy grilled goodness of a bratwurst.

I was at the back of the Walmart, and it was a SUPERWALMART, but thank goodness I know my way around the super walmarts.  Of course, I was still in my dress...and high heels, so I was basically doing a weird sort of butt clench hobble limp run to the bathroom before my entire digestive system ruptured.

I made it in time...and thank goodness I was wearing a dress!  (No fussy zippers or buttons to get in the way.)  Of course, I'm pretty sure my picture is now up on a wall in that restroom with a note that says something like, "If you see this woman in this restroom...run!"

Something about firing an entire day's worth of food right out of you...it pretty much wears you out. hubby returned to the Walmart with Parker's camera and we drove the 30 minutes to the hotel, where I hit the hay and was asleep within minutes.

Sooo...what's left?

Well, my friends, what's left is the wedding day!

THE GROSSEST STORY I'VE EVER TOLD!

WARNING!  TODAY'S POST CONTAINS MATERIAL NOT SUITABLE FOR MEN AND THOSE WITH LOW TOLERANCES FOR GROSSLY FUNNY STORIES. 

READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.  THAT MEANS YOU, TODD!  :)



I'm moderately certain I scared a Direct TV saleswoman back to California.

Here's how it happened:

Friday night Hubby, Peaches and I were shopping for a new TV at the local warehouse membership club store.  The TV we've owned for almost 5 years was starting to show signs of falling apart, and we'd been saving for one of those new fangled HD dealios anyway, so Friday night was the night. 

We found the model we wanted and, since you can't just buy a TV, you have to buy all sorts of props and cables and players and what not, Peaches and Hubby ran about the store whilst I stood guard over our new PRECIOUS.  The Direct TV sales person was standing there and, since I'm incapable of standing next to someone for five seconds without talking to them, I started chatting with her.

The topic of our old TV and when and where we bought it came up.  As luck would have it, I have a great...but very gross story...to go with the purchase of our last TV.  So I thought since the Direct TV person was a lady, and since we'd been chatting for about 10 minutes, we were obviously close enough friends I could share this story with her.


The Last TV we bought we had to buy during the Winter Olympics of 2006.  Our older model died in the middle of the ski jumping events and there was no way I was missing ski jumping.  So we got into our 4 door sedan and drove around to every Walmart in the area  (Because actual electronic stores are too expensive and hey, we're smart enough to get our own TV to our own house on our own.) looking for the biggest model we could afford.  Finally, we located one in a town about ten minutes from home.  It was a flat screen, but the old kind  (You know from way back in 2006 when flat screen meant the screen was flat, but the butt of the TV weighed about 65 pounds.)

Buying the TV was not a problem.  When they brought the box out...I looked at that and said, "There is no way that box is going to fit in our car."

Hubby replied, "True, but we are going to take the TV out of the box and then put it into the car."

(For the record, this is sort of how every electronics purchase we make goes.  I have yet to bring home a TV/Computer/Stereo/Microwave box.  We always leave it at the store because our car is too small to handle the big boxes.)

I had my doubts, but hey, he's a smart guy, so I followed him out of the store to the windswept frozen parking lot.  How windy was it?  Well, when we opened the box, the first thing I had to do was catch the thing foam packaging sheets that flew out of the box.  While I was chasing that, Hubby was dragging the TV, which weighed about as much as a husky third grader, out of the box (the size of said third graders' bedroom) and trying to get it into the back seat of the car. 

Yeah.  The basic rules of Geometry have to apply.  You cannot shove a TV that is four feet deep and four feet wide into a space that's...less than that.  I don't care how cushy the seat it, or how hard you shove, that TV is NOT going to fit.

Didn't stop Hubby from putting a hole in the plastic lining of the car door, however.

At this point, I stop chasing rubbish around the icy parking lot.  Hubby says he might need a bit of muscle to help.  I give it my best shot, but let's face it, I'm not much muscle in the best of circumstances.  Standing there, trying to cram a massive piece of outdated electronics into the back of a car that simply will not bend its shape to help, while Arctic winds are swirling around us...that's not when I'm at my strongest. So I went back to the the store, where no less than three slacked jawed teen male employees were standing, watching us do this  and LAUGHING.  I looked at them and said, "We need a bit of help."

Two of them couldn't stop laughing long enough to refuse me.  The third one, who must have felt sorry for me or thought I was some sort of Walmart corporate spy looking for good customer service, put on a pair of gloves and followed me back out to the iceberg where hubby was still wrestling with the car and TV.

Walmart employees at your service!

(The big box had, by this time skittered itself about a mile away on the ice.  None of us bothered to even acknowledge it was gone.)

After about ten more minutes in the frigid air, Hubby and Helper decided that the best route was to fold the passenger seat all the way back and put the TV in there...like a weird shaped older relative you have to put in the front seat.  It was all okay.  The TV was in the car, Hubby was in the car.  And I squeezed myself into the tiny space in the back seat.  And that's when I realized something very shocking...and very gross.

My maxi pad had frozen.  Solid.

I rode home, cramped in the back seat while the TV had the prime spot...and my nether regions were FREEZING because of the ice pack down there.

Ladies, ponder that for a moment.  And, as you're laughing, don't forget to breathe!

So I was telling this story to the Direct TV lady on Friday and she looked at me in horror and said, "It's gets cold enough that that can happen?"

Wait until she has to shovel her first "wet snow."

The good news from this is yes, we got a shiny new TV that's actually FLAT.  It fit in the car just fine, and I may stop reading and writing altogether because I'm in love with this thing they call HD! 

Oh, and no maxi pads were injured in the writing of this post!