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Broke Wife, Big City
The most
magical place on earth
By Aprill Brandon
There are really only two things you can count on in this world.
There will always be a line at Starbucks.
Everything changes (except there always being a line at Starbucks).
Yes, change truly is the one constant in this world. Time marches on
and on, dragging with it decay and dust and the dying careers of B-list
actors.
But there is one place, one magical place, where time has stood still.
A place that, just like the great white shark, has never had to evolve.
Someday the pyramids will fall and nature will reclaim our concrete
cities and the voodoo spell currently keeping Keith Richards alive will
end. Yet, this magical place will still be standing, its murky
florescent lights still flickering and buzzing, beckoning us in away
from the cold, cruel hands of a relentless Father Time.
This magical place I’m talking about, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by
now, is Kmart.
Oh yes. Kmart. That retail giant we all grew up with and that provided
generations of children with the embarrassingly hideous clothes that
were required on school picture day. Much to my surprise, and possibly
yours, these magical places still exist today. And magical they are,
kids. Because you can walk into any Kmart anywhere in the world and it
is perpetually 1983 in there.
I know this because I’ve gotten on pretty intimate terms with the Kmart
store that is within walking distance of my house ever since I had a
baby. See, babies are a unique creature that are always requiring
things. And not just any things. Things they need RIGHT NOW. Things
like diapers and wipes and milk and a right shoe because they somehow
lost their right shoe and only their right shoe but since none of their
other shoes currently fit because they just had a growth spurt 15
minutes ago, they require a whole new pair.
So, like every other exhausted parent, I spend half my life in whatever
the closest store is to buy my kid all the stupid crap they require on
a constant basis.
Time moves at a different pace inside Kmart. You walk in from the
blinding summer sunlight through those doors to pick up some infant
Tylenol and processed cheese and when you walk back out, suddenly it’s
dusk.
In the middle of winter.
Three years from now.
This is mainly because Kmart is built like a labyrinth where nothing is
where it logically should be, but also because this never-ending maze
is littered with all kinds of booby traps, like unsupervised feral
toddlers and abandoned carts piled high with men’s khaki pants blocking
pathways.
This time vortex pulls you even deeper in once you finally make it to
the checkout. Because of the three lanes open (and there will always
only be three lanes open, ALWAYS, unless there are only two lanes
open), no matter which one you choose, you will end up behind the
person who has to, for some unfathomable reason, purchase her giant
pile of stuff using two separate transactions. (And don’t even THINK of
switching lanes because if you do you will inevitably end up behind
someone worse…like someone who needs a price check AND has coupons AND
answers a phone call from her sister, who she’s fighting with,
mid-transaction).
Now why this aforementioned person needs to purchase the shampoo and
out-of-season Christmas sweater with cash and the candles, coloring
books, dust buster and crock pot with a credit card is a mystery that
not even Nancy Drew partnered up with the Hardy Boys can figure out.
And yet, it happens.
Every.
Single.
Time.
But time is not the only magical thing about Kmart.
Take, for instance, how every single cashier that works in the store is
magically only on their third day of the job and doesn’t know how
anything works, like the cash register or basic capitalism. So, just to
be safe, they scan your items with the speed of Han Solo trapped in
carbonite.
Kmart is also full of people who have never shopped before. Or so you
would reasonably assume, once you see how they react after being handed
their receipt. These people proceed to stare at this piece of paper as
though they have never seen such a thing before in their life.
“A list of the goods I just purchased 18 seconds ago? What witchery is
this!? I had better stand here and inspect this devil paper in
excruciating detail, the next person in line be damned! Now, this first
item here, dear merchant, I see it says the puzzle of the ducks on the
water was $5.99. That’s interesting, indeed. Oh yes, I knew it was
$5.99. I just find it interesting. Now as for line two…”
But mock though I do, dear Kmart, the fact remains I need you, at least
until my kid can wipe his own butt. And even I must admit that entering
through your magical, time-warp doors is always an adventure.
I’d tell you to never change, but there’s no need.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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