The Christmas Speed Bump

Of the short list of things I dislike, I hate, loathe and despise Cache Valley radio stations. They range from sadistically arduous to listen to, to horrifically annoying. Country is off that scale for me. Although, for reasons I can't explain, I love Bluegrass, which is like the redneck, Southern, inbred, kinfolk to Country.

Occasionally I will stumble across a song on the radio that I like. A glimmer of hope slowly kindles within me and then the next song comes on, I shriek in horror, yank a fist full of hair out of my head and quickly turn the station. In process of trying to find something on the radio last week, I stumbled across something I liked. It was the glassy smooth vocals of Frank Sinatra. I ignored the fact that he just happened to be singing a Christmas song. I hoped it was just a coincidence. I hoped to hear a song by Sammy Davis Jr. or I wouldn't even mind a Michael Buble, something more of that genre. The faint gleam of hope flickered to life inside of me. I smiled and listened to the song to the end, held my breath for that brief second before the next song came on, and -- JINGLE BELLS!!!! This time I ripped out two handfuls of hair from my head and quickly changed the channel. It is a good thing the kids were not in the car. I would have certainly startled them when I shouted "JINGLE BELLS? WHAT THE HELLS?" (incidentally, if you can rhyme a rant, it makes you feel nearly twice as satisfied) Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas music probably more than the next person, but come on! The corpse of this years Halloween hasn't even cooled. We just finished patting down the last shovel full of dirt on its grave and I turn around and there's Jolly old St. Nick? Shove off blubber butt, you've been eating too many chocolate chip cookies and now you are starting to crowd out the best holiday ever known to man -- Thanksgiving. You got the WHOLE month of December to yourself, you don't need to be elbowing in on my turkey day with your sweaty palms and your Ho-ho-hos.

Those pilgrims might have dressed funny and shot funny guns, but to their credit, I hear Calvin Klein was very much into wearing belts on your hat that year. They sure knew how to make a tradition. Thanksgiving has everything. First, you get to have a big dinner with all of your family. Not only is "turkey" a fun word to say, but it is delicious. Then you have mashed taters, olives that you can put on your fingers, pumpkin pie, sometimes you get ham. top that off with a nap in front of the TV playing some football game, wake up have some more pie, shove celery sticks up your brother-in-law's nose who is still sleeping on the couch, until he wakes up and screams at you and says he hates everyone and he wishes he would have never come to this family's thanksgiving dinner and he slams the door as he storms out and we all laugh, because his keys are still on the couch where he was laying. You just don't get better than a holiday centered around eating really good food with your family and naps. That's really the best life has to offer.

You will have to understand when I see Santa hip bump a pilgrim to the side as he settles up to the Thanksgiving table, that I don't hate the jolly old soul, I am just afraid that if he gets near that pie, there won't be any more for me when I wake up from my nap.

In a lineup of the holidays, Thanksgiving is much like it's puritan founders. Simple and neat. Christmas is the same holiday just pimped out and blinged up. You gotta warm up for something as grand and spectacular as Christmas. You can't start out full stride on a marathon like Christmas. You gotta practice. Get your pacing right. Get a feel for the eb and flow of things. You gotta make your brother-in-law apologize before you put his name back on the Christmas list... or before you give him his keys back.

You don't have to be funny

"You don't have to be funny" was the only thing Mandy said to me when I told her I needed to think of something to blog about.

She is right. I don't always have to be funny. I just got back from the hospital where I went and saw my father in ICU. I just took a glance at my funny-o-meter and it is dipping way down in the red area where it has a picture of a sad clown.

Why fight it. I am just going to shoot from the hip and pour a little bit off the top of whatever is swilling around in my head.

A week and a half ago he went in for open heart surgery. A little less than a week and a half ago, he planned on waking up and saying "Son of a bitch That hurts. Someone bring me a Mountain Dew before I get cranky." A week and a half ago, the doctors lost him three times on the operating table.

I went to see him last Saturday. He looked horrible but I was optimistic. Today when I went to see him he looked better, but I am less optimistic. He has made progress every day. Baby steps of improvement. But, baby steps on an escalator that is moving in the opposite direction. For every day that he lays in ICU he atrophies a bit more. He looses more strength. The road to recovery becomes longer and more perilous. If by Thursday, he still needs to be intubated, they have no choice but to give him a trachea tube.

Tonight he looked pained and weathered. His brow was furrowed. When my sister and I walked in his room he twitched his feet and he shrugged his left shoulder so far forward, that I almost expected to see him sit up. Yesterday he was opening his eyes when visitors came to see him. Today they have sedated him beyond that point.

The thought has re-occurred to me several times that while he was on the operating table, the veil between this life and the next, most certainly became very wispy if not completely withdrawn. I am sure his parents and his sister were there to greet him. I am sure returning back to a badly damaged and pained body is difficult. A transition, I am not convinced would come without a lot of hesitation.

I no longer know what to hope for him. A recovery that means he spends the rest of his life being cared for in a nursing home or having 24 hour hospice care. I don't know if I want that for him. I know how he feels about that. My sister who is a nurse went to visit him last week and mentioned the long recovery that would possibly involve rehabilitation in a nursing home. at that utterance all of his monitors went off. He did not, and does not like that idea at all. That man loathes any indications that he was aging. He turned 79 last Saturday. He spent the day sedated, with a breathing machine doing all of his blowing in and out for him. There's a good chance he had no clue it was his birthday.

A week and and a half ago, I had no clue he was going in for surgery. He didn't call us to let us know. My sister found out and had called us. A week and a half ago I also wasn't as patient with my children as I am now. A week and a half ago I didn't listen as closely to other people as I do now. A week and a half ago I didn't stop as long to admire a cloud formation or notice how crisp the morning air is.

I don't know what is the best thing for my father. I don't know what the future has slated for him. The best I can do is hope and pray. The best I can do is see that tomorrow I am a better person for what I have seen today. The best I can do is give my funny-o-meter a few rapid succession taps on the glass, to see if we can get it back up into the green area that has the picture of a dancing clown, because he has been set on fire by a circus chimp... because, as we all know, chimps and clowns on fire are probably the funniest things known to man. Well, that and fart jokes.

Halloween Horrors

I was recently reading a comment of a friend of mine on Facebook that said something to the effect of "is at the lingerie store...oh wait the Halloween store. Same thing." She was making commentary on something I hadn't really noticed. Well, I had noticed, I just wasn't thinking about it. To my friend's caption, I commented "Lingerie stores will have more modest clothing."

Then Walker wanted me to look online for Halloween costumes. A few seconds in and I felt like I had to cover both of our eyes. So I began to wonder where did this trend suddenly derive from. I think I have it figured out.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man with nothing better to do than sit on my porch and yell at kids that step on my lawn, I am going to say "Kids these days!" OK ready? Kids these days! Can't spell so good. Now I am not talking about kids in elementary school. Teenagers. I don't know if it comes from spending the whole day staring at a cell phone screen, frenziedly jabbing in LOLs, OMGs and :) Now, I hate talking on the phone more than just about anyone, but 30 seconds into a text and only having punched out 2 letters, even I just gave up and called the person I was texting. I realize that this neurotic phone jabbing, forces you to consolidate words, misspell, abbreviate and use acronyms whenever possible. Which, I fear is causing a loss in the art of spelling and face to face communication.

Back when I was a kid, we greeted each other with high fives and said "Hey dude! What's going on?" "nothin'- how bout you?" "Uh... nothing" and then we stared at our shoes. Shuffled uncomfortably and then said "Well, good seeing you. Take it easy!" "Yeah, you too man!" I fear that valuable skill is losing ground. Kids these days! Can't strangle them though, cause who's gonna spoon feed my banana pudding to me in the nursing home when I am old and decrepit? I am sure I will have to request they do so in a text though.

One day, I am positive, a gum chomping Paris Hilton wannabe was standing around smashing buttons on her phone when someone said "Hey you want to go to a Halloween party?" (oh wait, I forgot my character here) Actually she got a text that said "LOL, OMG wana go 2 a holoween pardy :)" and she smiled and texted back "4 shur LOL ;)" and then she texted "wats the theem?" and then she got a reply that said "gools and horrs" So, she thought to herself "Like omagosh! Like, I don't even know like, what a gool is... like! Like, I'm totally goin' as a whore! Like, I don't even have to even change my clothes!" and so, she went. Every guy there ogled her and every girl there was jealous of her attention and the next year... not to be out done, all the girls dressed like whores. And so, horror in a terrible swirl of word confusing events, became synonymous with whore.

Now as guys (lumped together in one smelly, hairy, Neanderthal-like stereotype) we wont' put a stop to skimpy clothing. Take for example, bikinis, mini skirts, thongs paired with low rise pants and low cut shirts. We will just pretend not to, and be trying not to stare. So, we have dressed as ghouls and let the girls dress like whores. I am sure I speak for myself only when I say -- Please stop, You don't know what you are doing, and if you do--shame one you! Besides, aren't we all forgetting the reason for the season?

I got nothin'

I recommitted myself to blogging recently. One day I stood straight up from my chair, jabbed my fore-finger into the air as high as I could reach and declared with a loud and echoey voice (because I like to sit in the shower on a chair... and just think) "I promise from this day henceforth (I paused for dramatic effect and admired the sound of my voice reverberating off of the walls) ...to blog every Sunday night!" and then I quickly mumbled something like "Unless I am taking a nap or watching a really cool show, out of town, cutting my toenails, watching the SWAT team out my front window (which doesn't happen nearly enough since moving from Logan) or training my parrot to say 'Help me! I'm Michael Jackson trapped in this parrots body!' (should I ever happen to buy a parrot).

But this Sunday came and went and I didn't have any peculiar stories to relay or interesting observations to pass on. My kids love it when I tell stories. Bless their hearts, they are too young and innocent to realize I am a pathetic story teller. Not sure if it is my voice that is so monotonous it actually cures hyperactivity and insomnia... or if it is my side tangents that make my tales look more like mazes than a linear series of thoughts from point A to B. I can do OK writing a story, but Lord help us all, if I have to tell it. So, I fumbled around in my bag of childhood stories and procured one at random. Hope you enjoy!

At the time of these events, I must have been 8 or 9. It was winter time, fridgid outside and the cold and cough season had thrown her stuffy, mucus cape over the community. It was Sunday morning and I woke up with terrible sore throat. I hate colds and I was committed to turning this one in its tracks and back out the door before it could saunter in, turn on all of the faucets, plug up the drains and plop its heavy self down in the crook of the most tender parts of my sinuses. In my finite understanding of the medicine world, I had imagined Popeye living in my immune system and Vitamin C was like spinach. And if a little bit of spinach was good... more was better.

For breakfast I had a tall glass of orange juice, scrambled eggs, 2 grapefruit and 4 vitamin C chewable pills. My throat felt better already! The whole family got ready and we went out to the car. Everyone except for Lori. I couldn't understand how she would be the first one up and still be late. Hours were devoted in front of her mirror, curling, brushing, painting, spraying and moussing. I look back now and see the hairdos she wore and understand that it was a small feat of nature to get her hair to maintain that shape. One time I was at the beach and we had some KFC for lunch. As I picked the last bits of meat off of a bone I saw a seagull coming in to land by us. I coiled my arm back and launched the bone at the bird. End over end the bone sailed right at the bird. The bird saw it too. The bird and I could see that it was on course for a mid-air collision. It flared out it's wings and tail. Even its feet and beak were stretched as wide open as they could go. Just like opening up an umbrella or a parachute, the bird exploded in size. If you could take that bird and freeze it in time, coat it in lacquer, and put it on your head, that might give you an example of what kind of hair my sister-- and the other girls were wearing at the time.

As a result, Lori was always late for church. The ritual went as follows. Mom stood in the kitchen and shouted "Come on! we are leaving!" In essence "All aboard!" We would all gather in the kitchen and mom would shout down the stairs "Lori! We are LeAvInG!!!" or "Last call!" Lori would shout back "OK! I'm coming!" we would all wander out to the car in the garage, wait the complimentary 30 seconds and then leave. Lori would then show up at church 10 minutes later.

This morning was no unusual event. Mom shouted her customary boarding calls and we left. In our church, the building was built in several stages over many years. The primary for some reason had all of the classrooms upstairs. I trudged up the stairs that at the time seemed like they were 100 or so feet long, and went and sat down in opening exercises with my class. I sat on the furthest seat in, next to the wall. Everything seemed great. We started with a prayer and began singing. Suddenly my hands felt clammy and I felt beads of sweat accumulating on my forehead. My mouth began to get really moist and I felt a clunk in my stomach as the production wheels came to a stop. I muttered to myself "Oh no! not now!" and slumped over and rested my head on the wall. The cool glossy white painted wall felt good on my burning face. I felt a gurgle in my stomach "NO!" I muttered again. But my pleadings went unheeded. I could tell my stomach was none too happy about whatever was floating around inside of it. and it was making plans really quick to purge the system. "Uh uh!" grumbled and pressed my arms into my gut. It groaned back and I could feel the pressure building. This was code red! An alarm went off in my head followed by an alert "aaoooggaa aaooggaa!" I was shocked at how quickly we had gone from all systems normal to reverse thrust.

I scooted past everyone sitting on the row as quickly and politely as I could and as I passed my teacher on the end I muttered "I don't feel so good". Unobstructed I began a full trot to the nearest bathroom. Out the primary room, around the corner, down the 100 feet of stairs that now looked like 300 feet, down to the bottom of the stairs around the corner! I just had to make it past the cultural hall and the wall with all of the coat racks on it, around ONE more corner, just a few more steps to the bathroom and then just a few more to the toilet! "COME ON! WE CAN DO THIS!" and "Who the HELL decided to put the bathrooms way over here!!!" I rounded the second to last corner at full stride. Paul Revere wasn't as hasty as I was now. But already I could feel the warm, burning flow of shame rushing up my throat. I pursed my lips and covered my mouth with my hand. My lips braced like they were playing Red Rover with the Devil himself. my fingers backing the whole operation. My legs churned like the pistons of an Indy car on the home-stretch checkered flag run. The stinging flow smashed into my mouth with the pressure of a fire hose. my tight lips and clenched fingers only gave the stream of puke more distance. As I ran past all of the coats I am sure I sprayed every last one of them with a fine stream of fluid just as toxic as sulphuric acid. Still it was hardly a concern of mine. As I rounded the last corner I dropped my shoulder and smashed through the bathroom door.

There was a man standing at the urinal. He gaped at me like I was wearing a gorilla suit and a tutu. I breezed past him, crashed through the stall door and halted directly over the toilet. A tiny dribble of spit was all that remained in my mouth. It seemed to giggle as it fell from my tongue into the water, as if to say "That's all you got into the toilet!" The man at the urinal stood there like he didn't know what to say. He stood there staring at me, as if waiting for me to do one final stunt. Finally he gathered some of his wits back about him and asked "Um... who... who is your dad?" I told him and he stood there still looking at me "I'll... um... I... I am going to go get him for you." I waved him away and groaned "Yeah"

I shuffled over to the mirror and looked at myself. There was vomit in my hair, on my face, on my hand, all over my shirt, on my tie, splattered on my scriptures, sprayed down the front of my pants and chunks were resting peacefully on my shoes. My dad came in and took me home. I slowly made my way up the stairs and into the house. I wanted to clean up, get into some clean clothes and go to sleep. I swung the door open to the house and there stood Lori just leaving. Her eyes lit up, she covered her mouth with one hand and pointed at me with the other and just started laughing. She laughed and laughed so much she stumbled around and had to brace herself against the kitchen counter to stay on her feet.

I felt like I been run through a paper mill and now I was being laughed at. I tried my best to look miserable and I felt worse now that I was found to be such a funny sight. Yet I couldn't help but smile. I groaned past her to my room. And I heard her snorting and giggling all the way out to here car. She told me when she got to church the bishop was in the hall with a rag cleaning up my puke.

Time heals and now I can look back and laugh. But to this day, you can still see stains on my old set of scriptures where they were sprayed. The moral of the story kids, There is too much of a good thing. Vitamin C overdose is very real and even Popeye can have too much spinach for his own good, but if you are looking for a quicker method to getting out of something on account of being ill than eating Beto's, I might be able to give you some pointers.

Dear Tongue

Dear Tongue,

I am writing to inform you that your relentless reign of terror is over. Gone are the days lounging in a hammock whilst being fanned by maidservants with palm fronds and clapping your hands and ordering up whatever your hearts desire like you were a Roman Emperor. "I want you to bring me a 32... 44... no 64 Oz Coke, with a splash of artificial vanilla flavoring, and I want a Kit-Kat. But not a regular Kit-Kat, a king size for a king size appetite like we have! And I want double stack from Wendy's. And since they are $.99, bring me two of them... no THREE of them! and then I want an egg roll with some of that spicy mustard. And to finish it all off, we better eat something healthy, so that our annoying conscience doesn't annoy us. Yogurt is healthy right? Bring me a platter of yogurt of the frozen variety drizzled with chocolate and sprinkled with gummy bears. And then we will see how we feel after that"

After marching in lockstep with your relentless orders for nearly 3 years, I have found myself shellacked in a liberal coat of fat. About 30 lbs of fat. The fiddler has arrived and he has an outrageous invoice in hand demanding payment.

Thanks to you, the rest of me is going to have to spend countless hours exercising, toiling, laboring and sweating (but not to the oldies... Sorry Richard).

Consider this the mutiny. The uprising. The angry mob with pitch forks and torches demanding justice. From now on we are replacing the soda with it's puritan cousin water. No more fries. No more pre-bed snacks. No more buffets.

Tomorrow you will be reassigned to your regular duty of talking and aiding in food consumption. We don't really care what your whimsical requests are. You are an egotistical gluttonous monster. Thanks to you, we get winded getting up off of the couch.

If you choose to disobey our demands, the teeth will be ordered to lock you in. Should you try to escape the teeth will have permission to bite you with deadly force.

sincerely,

The rest of the body

P.S. We have all known the whole time that you were imitating the stomach's voice and telling the rest of us what he wanted. We didn't mind... until now. Please disavow yourself of this wretched habit also, or we will ingest a cup full of steaming hot cocoa.

Grab bag

Here's a grab bag of thoughts and stories from this week:

Last weekend I went elk hunting with my dad and my brother. I got a late start and didn't turn off onto the dirt road to the mountains until it was dark. As I was merging onto a dirt road and crossing a cattle guard, I saw something out of the corner of my headlights. It was a small animal and looked like it was fairly long. It was waddling along the side of the road like an aimless vagrant. I turned the car towards it, so that the headlights were shining directly on it, so that I could identify what this was. Turns out it was two animals. a pair of, how should I say... amorous porcupines. I'm not sure how that works. "Hmm..." I muttered to myself and continued on.

I think everyone has their own super power and their own arch-nemesis. My arch nemesis is Donny Osmond. I watched him on Dancing with the Stars. For reasons I can't explain, he embarrasses me... and... does he sort of look like a pigeon? Maybe that is it.

I was telling this story to my brother and he had never heard it. It's a good one, and unlike most of my other stories is all true and requires no extra relish or spice:
If you were driving into the culda-sac where I grew up in at the top of 200 North in Farmington, my house would be situated on the right side. On the left side, there was our neighbor's house. The property our house was set on, was about 5 feet higher than our neighbors. separating the houses was a gentle slope across the paved road. As kids do, I was engaged a competition to see who could make the longest skid mark on their bikes. I rode The most horrible yellow bike with a big, black banana seat. The steel on this bike seemed to be as thick as my arm and weighed something near what a Buick sedan might have. It was clunky, awkward, trashed and old. I hated it, but it was also my bike. A source of freedom, camaraderie and sport. I hated it, yet I loved it. The chain had an annoying habit of falling off without warning. It was slightly too large for me and if I dismounted with both feet, I came to a rest on my pinto beans instead of my feet. All of that extra weight played into my favor as it could lay the longest skid marks in town.

On this day I found within myself an extra helping of determination, energy and an evil plan to put to rest this banter and show once and for all who was the king o' the skid mark. I opened our garage door, requested the neighbors open theirs, and placing my back wheel on the back wall of our garage I pointed my battle hardened war machine towards the landing strip. I stood up and smashed the left pedal down as hard as I could, the bike lurched under my weight. I followed by mashing down with my right foot, then my left... right, left, right, faster, faster, FASTER! The pedalling grew so rapid I had to sit down on the seat and keep pumping my legs as fast as I could. The wind in my ears grew to a deafening roar. It was like the howling applause of a hundred thousand people come to watch me! I was blasting down the incline at unheard of speeds, this was sure to be my finest moment. This was it! The moment I was brought into this world for!

Disaster has a sinister sense of humor. my pedal strokes suddenly became easy. Too easy. Failure of the most tragic nature had struck me. The chain! HOLY CRAP THE CHAIN!!! Not now! NOT NOW!
Facing tragic moments of survival a brain can calculate nearly impossible outcomes, 3D renderings and damage control in only a few nano-seconds. I played them all out in my head and imediately relinquished all hope of accelerating and considered my alternatives for deceleration. It took maybe a full second for my body to realize there was no exit plan. We were on this crazy train - destination Painsville, with no stops. It was now time to minimize collateral damage. I frantically tested my route and discovered I had sweeping array of points of impact all located on the back wall of my neighbor's garage. I chose a spot on the wall that I seemed to look the softest and set my aim, braced myself and prepared for impact. From that moment on, time sped back up to normal time.

I remember picking myself up off the floor. My crotch-region painfully pounded like it was detonating with every heart beat. I had apparently taken a major collision in that area by the handle bar stem. Next, my head, body and arms slammed into the wall. I slowly picked myself up and stood my bike up. realizing yet another punchline from disaster's joke. I noted that my bike was broken nearly in half. The top tube had snapped completely free from the stem and the down tube was hanging on to the bottom bracket by a small sliver of steel. "Sweet! I can get a new bike!" I thought. I don't remember even being in pain anymore by the time I got home. I ran in and excitedly told my mom that I needed a new bike... I busted my old stupid bike!
She hauled it off to the welding shop that was a few blocks away and within a few days I had my crappy old bike back again. Never since then have I been so disappointed in the old adage "Fix it up, use it up, or do without."

General retail outlet observations

Last week Mandy got a fix-it ticket in our car. A head light and a tail light were out, and truth be told, because it was just her and Shelby in the car, they were probably listening to Hannah Montana and swerving to the beat. Because she was at her mother's house running her day care, while her mom was on a Twilight (the movie) Pilgrimage to Washington. I had to fix it last Saturday at her mom's house so that she could have the ticked waived.

I propped open the hood and stared helplessly. No tools. K-mart was the closest thing I could think of that would have tools. Off I went in a quest for a 10mm socket and ratchet.

I pulled into the parking lot and wondered if I hadn't made the wrong turn into Chernobyl. a lone tumble weed bounded merrily end over end across the parking lot. Checking the clock I found I was there at regular business hours... but I was the only one there at regular business hours. Apprehensively I stepped into the store. The lights were on. A soft elevator song played quietly overhead. A cashier was standing at her register. Leaning over, resting her arm on the counter and her head propped up on her arm. She slowly and lethargically wandered in and out of consciousness. The motion of the door alerted her senses. She stood up quickly, grabbed the phone and dialed in one swooping motion. Standing straight up and staring right at me with large eyes, she tried to whisper into the phone but was so excited I heard everything. "Sir! A customer! Yes, right now! He just came in now! Yes, I still remember the training! I gotta go I think he is actually coming in to shop!" I rounded an end display and turned to find a clerk dusting merchandise on the shelf. He did a double take and looked at me in horror. For a few seconds he stared at me as if he was expecting me to hurt him and then suddenly snapped into awareness "Welcome to K-mart" He blinked "Can I help you find something?" I breezed on by him "nope".

The manager appeared in a brisk walk before I entered the tool section. He had his head down and he was muttering "Please, please, please buy something!" He almost ran into me. Looking up he stopped and said "Good morning sir! Please buy something!... I mean, what can I help you find this glorious morning?" I said "No, I am fine." He continued to follow behind me as I gazed over their tools. I noticed that as I would reach out to something he would begin mumbling "Yes! Yes! Yes!" If I withdrew my hand he would continue to nervously chew on his fingernails. If I picked something up, he would say "Oh, that is a very lovely choice sir!" When I put it back he would spit out a chunk of fingernail and mutter "CURSES!" Finally I selected a 10 piece socket set and started walking towards the cash register. He jumped up and down and began clapping his hands exuberantly together. He picked up a walkie talkie from his hip and said "Look alive everyone! We got a paying customer here!"

I made my way to the cash register and the cashier asked me "Will that be credit or debit?" and flashed a smile to the manager as if she was anxious to prove that she had remembered and been rehearsing what to say. When I left I looked back in time to see the manager sniffing and cradling the receipt and a crowd of 4 or 5 employees celebrating. What's the deal with K-mart. Doesn't anyone shop there anymore?

Yesterday we were shopping at Sam's club. Saturdays are sample days. I like to watch people. I like to observe my own actions. I noticed that when it comes time to take a sample a line usually forms. The person at the front of the line takes a sample, tastes it, raises their eyebrows, shakes their head in approval and says "Mmmm! This is good!" Like the person giving the sample cares. Like they aren't just there to collect a pay check and dole out tiny samples of food that we have all had. Whether you have had the the sample or not, it is the rule that you have to gingerly pick it up and look at it briefly in wonderment, like you are unsure what to do with it. Then take a tiny bite offer up praise and then you are permitted to eat the rest of the sample. Because, I am sure we are aware if the sample person hears negative comments they will immediately fold up their table, toss their food in a cart and say "Well! If you don't like my food, then I'm going somewhere will they WILL like my food!"

After we sample, the sample person tells us how much the item is and where it is located. We all nod to each other like that is an insanely good deal and slowly we wonder off in that general direction like we fully intend on loading up several cart fulls of said product. Then when we feel the sample person isn't looking anymore, we say to people shopping with us, "GO!" and we duck down an aisle towards the next sample table.

Then there are the sample bombers. The people who sneak in while the sample person is explaining to the person at the front of the line that this product has no MSG and only has minimal amounts of horse meat. The sample bomber tip toes in hunched over and says "I'm just gonna..." and they reach out with their index finger raised, snatch a sample and shrink back into the crowds thereby circumventing the homage and proper respects one must pay to take a sample. One sample table ran out of samples and while a new batch was being cooked an impromptu line formed several rows back for samples. Everyone stood reverently and attentively like they were waiting to receive sacrament from their Priest.

In an earlier trip to Sam's I was making my way down the aisle to get some soap. I was trapped behind an elderly couple. They took turns, one pushing the cart, the other walking next to the cart while looking at EVERYTHING like their lives depended on it. I tried the usual tactics, trying to nudge my cart in, clearing my throat, saying "Excuse me!" They could not be persuaded. They were fully engulfed in their shopping experience. Then they parked their cart in the aisle and they both stood next to it blocking traffic in both directions and stood there staring at the vast array of metamucil, Centrum Silver or Depends... I don't know. By this time there were two people bunched up behind me and a lady coming the other way down the aisle who were all just standing there waiting for these people to move the Hell out of the way! The lady who was coming the other way and I exchanged looks of amazement, frustration, humor and uncertainty about the situation. We were both trying to nudge our way through and they were completely oblivious. Finally the old lady stepped down the aisle allowing a path between the old man and his cart that one could slip their cart between. the lady coming the opposite direction snuck her cart through and then I slipped through. I looked back and noticed the old man had stepped back and plugged up the lane again. Old or not, boo! to oblivious shoppers.

Also, if you want a really great website about our fellow shoppers, specifically those of The Walmarts, Check out http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/