GOING WALMART

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Every human has this point where a switch goes off inside your head, and where you were previously able to keep your composure, suddenly you are not. Where you were nice, you are now on raging fire. Where you were courteous, you are now in attack mode. I am a reallllllly nice person but I reached that point… in Walmart.

I was about 5 months pregnant with my fourth baby (read: looks 8 months pregnant) and at Walmart for some rather fun shopping. I had my 5 year old daughter and her best friend with me. Ivy had birthday money to spend and she wanted to buy a fish. Now, if you are going to head on into Walmart, you might as well get a cart; and, if you have two tiny 5 year old girls with you, get the big blue cart with the kid seats and seatbelts. So I got the sweeties all strapped in and off we rolled.

You know those kinds of pregnant girls that you can’t tell are pregnant when they have their backs to you? I’m not one. I am a lead-with-my-belly, swing wide the heavenly hips kind of pregnant; and you can tell I am pregnant from any angle. Even if you could only see my nose you would know. I’m sure you can imagine what of what kind of a parade was rolling on through the aisles that day.

We were having such a lovely time. I love little girls so much and since I only have one, being out and about with two of them was a treat to me. They don’t spit on stuff, they don’t pick their noses and wipe it on the cart bar next to your hand or unbuckle and bolt. They were just riding and giggling and pointing at things they liked. It was basically stress free and fun. We hadn’t even gotten to the exciting fish portion of the outing. We were mid-aisle somewhere when my phone rang. My husband was working out of town and had very few chances to call, so when I saw his number on the ID, I answered. I was holding the phone in one hand and shuffling forward with my giant blue cart of little girls with the other, with the help of my right hip.

I saw a lady coming down the aisle and immediately tried to one-handed shuffle my giant blue caravan a little more to my side of the aisle. I am a very courteous shopper. I am always the one to say “pardon me” or “sorry to be in your way.” I help moms with wailing babies. I let people cut in front of me in the checkout line. Even though getting off the phone with Barry was not an option, I was doing my pregnant-bod best to get out of this lady’s way. I was obviously quite a spectacle and the whole shuffling thing was awkward and slow with one hand and one hip. As she got closer to me I slipped the phone from my ear, looked at her and said, “Sorry…”. She made a disgusted sound and muttered some yucky words about me getting off the bleeping phone and taking up so much bleeping space.

And that, dear reader, was my moment. This was when time and space came to a screeching halt and some kind of primordial rage rose up from my toes and took over my body. Things got very still around me, like I was Keanu Reeves in the Matrix; I just knew what I had to do. Barry said he could hear the lady saying stuff to me and then he heard me say, real scary, calm-like, “Honey, I’ll have to call you back.”

I told the girls I would be right back. She was a few yards further down the aisle by now and I Matrix-turned to get her in my sights. I moved towards her in what I can only describe as a “rage glide.” Never before has any super-pregnant body moved with such graceful purpose. When I got close enough to where I knew she could hear me, I fired. I unleashed a string of expletives on her that no unborn baby should ever hear echo through the womb. I can’t remember everything I said but I know I made sure she knew what position her mouth should be in, what gender of dog I thought she was, what kind of bodily byproduct she was full of and what she could do to herself. It. Was. Awesome.

This paragraph is for all the nice people. Are you a person who makes it your practice to be kind to everyone? Are you a person who smiles at strangers and offers up conversation in the checkout line? Are you the person who gives the other driver the parking space and waves kindly at the guy who stole it from you? Are you a person who is courteous to telemarketers and door to door salesmen? Well, that is a lot of work, isn’t it? It’s a lot of self-control and purposeful niceness. Wouldn’t you like to- just once- flippin’ lose it on someone? Wouldn’t you like to say exactly what you think about someone’s assinine (emphasis implied) behaviour without measuring your words, your tone, or your body language? People do it all the time. We’ve seen them do it. We are usually the ones that try to comfort whoever got unleashed on. Nice guys, I can tell you from experience that letting the dark side win, just once… felt amazing. It was as if all of the times I never retaliated or spoke up to rude people were all compressed into this one, other-wordly outpouring. When it was over I was literally vibrating with lack of oxygen and anger-happiness.

Until I remembered the girls. As the shocked and deserving lady turned on her heels and fled from me, I remembered… the girls. I slowly turned around and saw them, open-mouthed, staring at me. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. All the long way back to the blue cart, I was frantically rehearsing what to say and it dawned on me what this kind of 5 year old accountability was going to mean. When I got to them, this is what I said “Girls, I let that lady make me very angry and I said some really mean things to her. I have to go find her and apologize.”  To my shock and delight, Ivy said, “Yeah……you told her to shut up.” This was the only phrase in my string of nastiness that they had understood! I was saved by my prior lack of cussing! Thinking the victim could not have gotten far, I told the girls I would be right back.

(Note: only leave 5 year-olds alone in Walmart if you are trying to model Christ-likeness right after modelling Satan-likeness).

I checked the next two aisles and spotted her in the second one. I turned in and called out, “Ma’am…” She took one look at me and started running. She thought I was coming to finish what I started. I hustled off after her yelling “I just wanted to say that I am sorrryyyyyy…” and she never even slowed. I kept yelling apologies as she fled. I would give money to see surveillance footage from this day. A large pregnant lady yelling and chasing a tiny, middle-aged, bleached blonde meanie down a Walmart aisle. Internet gold.

I scooted back to the girls, who still seemed kind of unnerved by me saying “shut-up.” As I tried to salvage the experience for them by heading straight to the fun fish, it occurred to me that I was going to have to tell the little friend’s mom about what I had done. The little friend’s mom was not a cusser. She was a super vigilant mom whose kids didn’t watch much TV or eat hydrogenated oil and I had taken her kid to Walmart and gotten in a fight. I forgot that she is also a mom, has been uncomfortably pregnant, is nice to people all of the time and has been to Walmart. She was shocked by my story but most assuredly understood. This incident was 12 years ago and she still likes to tease me about “going Walmart.”

As delicious as losing it was, the consequences were too full of crow for me to want to ever do that again. The part that weirds me out the most is that there was no pre-cursor to me losing it. I wasn’t feeling stressed out. I was feeling happy! That’s what’s scary. If you’re a nice guy, you are not likely going to know when you are about to go Walmart-Matrix. If it’s your time, it could happen before you have even made it halfway through your shopping list. I don’t have a good stress meter. These days, if I can can actually FEEL some stress it means I am several levels beyond stressed by that point. Now I know, just don’t go anywhere because I am not safe for other people at these times.

Since this experience, I have heard stories from several other people about when and where they finally lost it. I have one friend who went “Popeye’s”, another  who went “Burger King” and one personal hero who went straight up “Garage Sale.” The best/worst story I know is that of a dear friend of mine who went so “Dollar Store” that she almost got arrested. Listen, everybody can’t keep it together all of the time. Sadly, for nice people, we are more likely to create a lasting impression via the time we went “Walmart” than by our consistent nicey-nice.

This is me about that time. You want this hurdling at you down a Walmart aisle? Mind your manners.

I always want my readers to get their wisdom cheaply and learn from my mistakes. Here are some take-aways for you that should keep you safe in your niceness:

  1. Mean people and their behaviour must never determine how you respond.
  2. When mean people and their behaviour determine how you respond, you have to apologize, even if they are still mean.
  3. Don’t get into fights at Walmart when you have your best friend’s kid with you because you can’t ask them to keep a secret from their mother.
  4. If you don’t say bad words regularly, your kids won’t recognize them when you finally do and you will have less to apologize for.

P.S. Nice people, won’t you do me the honor of commenting with just the name of the place where you went Wal-mart?

Michelle Patterson has been cranking out songs since she was 13 years old. She and her husband, guitarist/songwriter/producer, Barry Patterson, have toured their music together for 22 years. Michelle is the Vice President of Ascension Arts, an organization that facilitates arts education events and performances all over the world. She is also a vocal and songwriting coach. She and Barry are raising four stupendous children and one paranoid hound dog princess.

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51 Comments

  2. Oh Michelle – – – you CRACK ME UP to the point of coughing my brains out! Laughing always makes me cough, but now I have a chest cold. So, my dear, not only are you capable of terrorizing that MEAN lady at Walmart, shocking some girls with your “shut up” but of causing an elderly lady-friend some Monday morning respiratory problems.

    I love your writing 🙂 Thanks for the great (coughing) laugh!

      1. Well – – how can I possibly choose, Michelle?!? My inner monster has come out most often while in my car when I’ve encountered rude drivers. I’ve wished to have rubber bumpers and a really loud horn. I’d show THEM!! When someone was on my tail, I used to drive faster, but now my usual solution is to pull over and let them pass.

  3. Hwy 121 headed downtown.
    I was probably 6 months pregnant. I yelled words/names I had never said before.
    The other driver was going so fast that I didn’t have to apologize to him, but I did sob the rest of the way to school and repent repeatedly. If I’d had ashes, I would have been wearing them.

  5. Church parking lot, 2 months postpartum. Fellow worship staff member didn’t look when backing up and got his stupid car too close to my awesome baby. I. Will. Cut. You.

  6. 4 months pregnant, living in Nordegg. Been working double shifts in the restaurant for months, first ones starting at 4:00 am (not a morning person, so had been a “nice” actor for a long time). Came home between shifts, exhausted, cranky, needed a nap. Put a video in for my 2 & 4 year old and said, “Mommy’s just gonna lie down and have a little nap.” I had no sooner put my head on the pillow and they started bickering. They were little little kids, so not even a big deal. Right? Wrong. I lie there and could feel this panic and desperation for some sleep mixed with a rage is never experienced before. I jumped off the bed, stormed into the living room (right outside my room) and unleashed, sobbing uncontrollably, “ALL I WANTED WAS A NAP, JUST 20 MINUTES, I JUST NEED SOME SLEEP!!!” The rant went on,but that is the gist. No swears, just a demonic voice that was not my own. And two VERY wide eyed little girls. Our youngest, just two, just been talking for about 7 months, started wailing,, terrified, “I WANT MY MOMMY!!”
    So did I.
    I hugged both the girls and pulled myself together. Neither of them seem to have any recollection of this. I have some secret money put away for therapy if they need it later.

    1. I can actually see this, in my mind’s eye. I can even imagine it is me. I love the bit about “I want my mommy….” The best part about this story is the hugging and pulled yourself together. How many countless times have we done that? Also, we don’t save for college, we save for counseling. 🙂

  7. Awww, I’m famous! I went Popeyes. I threatened to call the police on two 16 year old girls who were attempting to invade the play place where my kids were innocently playing. Yes, yes I did. And then I found out later that I was pregnant. I think the momma bear rage hormone kicks it all to another level when we are pregnant. Never before have i had the urge to rise up and kill like I did then. I had friends with me who quickly distanced themselves from my vicinity and refused to make eye contact while I pantomimed calling the cops on my cell phone and pretended to animatedly chat with the cops so the teenagers would be sure to see me through the glass and know I meant business. I did try to apologize, but one of the teens continued to be nasty and make really compelling arguments like “everyone does it.” LOL.

  8. I had three epidural with my first three kids. I decided to go natural this time with a midwife. What I didn’t know was that this baby would be 3 pounds bigger than any of my other babes. During the birth I heard myself wail groan and growl like an injured hippopotamus Jeeeeeesssssusuuussss! Over. and. over. again. I’m pretty sure it didn’t sound like a prayer but it was all I could say (being the pain so horrendous). Not sure if I was “going baby” or “going hell”.

  9. Late stages of pregnancy, when the electric/water company showed up to shut off my services for non-payment, even though I knew we had paid. And I’m livid at this lackey and not very. I’ve to him but he says that he still had to collect the money or turn off the water. And I proceed to tell him all about how I had paid (it was distinct because there was an issue with the drop off box, so it was a very vivid memory…and I made sure he knew it. The poor guy said he was required to turn it off but he’d call to check and get back with me while he goes to other homes. In the meantime, I was on the phone ranting about how dare they just declare that my water gets turned off and how I am 8 months pregnant, so what am I suppose to do when I have to pee every three minutes but have no way to flush, and my dad is a DA so I have connections for their illegal actions etc etc… and about 30 minutes later there is a knock on the door: they were supposed to disconnect the home on 21st, not 22nd street. Needless annoyance, but victory in the end! 😉

  10. Well, crap ….I am an equally nice person as you have described yourself, and I still do not seem to have had this moment. EVER. That means it’s coming. One day I know it will happen….and when it does I’m sure it will be epic. Rest assured that I’ll be eager to share with you. ;-P LOL

    2. I haven’t either. Although I get much closer to it happening when I am pregnant. 11 babies a lot of tongue biting 😂

  11. I went total Momma bear in the doorway of my apartment in front of my 7 year old and my nephews (7 and 5). I had to then explain to my traumatized kids why my actions were wrong (even though in my head I was totally justified) and then the following day I had to explain to my inlaws why their boys may have some questions about their aunt. 17 years later I’m still mortified.

      1. Awe, now you are really gonna make me relive it. It was over the most Canadian thing ever, a hockey stick. My daughter was, and still is, one of the most kind hearted, sensitive child. We had some neighbor boys that continually tormented her. This day they decided to hit her with their hockey sticks. The boys did not notice that I was watching. At this point I was still calm and decided to try and handle the situation like an adult. I took the sticks and told them that if they wanted them back one of their parents had to come and talk to me. All proud of myself, ushered the children inside and decided to talk about bullying and have a snack. I’m feeling pretty proud of being able to have a teaching moment. Now here is where things go awry. There’s a knock on the door and I had a good idea who it was. I went and opened the door, with my child and nephews watching intently. First thing this mother said was “where the **** are my **** hockey sticks”. Great, this is not how it was supposed to go. I told her (not so calmly) the situation and that I wasn’t going to give them back. She pushed me and somewhere a very calm voice told the children to go to the bedroom. I grabbed the womans hair and threw her across the hallway into a wall. I guess I went full on Messier.

  12. The Aveda Hair Institute in Dallas.
    Went “Walmart “when they tried to bump me from an appointment that I was late to!!! BUT it was the week before Christmas and I was DESPERATELY SHAGGY!!! I did manage not to use any expletives but acted like that female dog you mentioned .They graciously worked me in and I did apologize to the receptionist…

  13. I went psycho Mama Bear in the hospital when they were trying to get blood from my 6th month old. She had a virus and gotten dehydrated and he dr hospitalized her. They were folding her down and the nurse was sticking her and moving the needle around trying to find the vein. Sophie was screaming and I finally looked at the nurse and said “if you can’t do it, find someone who can!” And then I stormed out of he room and left my husband with my daughter. I heard him say “I’m sorry” to the nurse and I turned around and said “don’t apologize for me! They are hurting my baby!” 😬😡 I never apologized to the nurse and I didn’t feel too bad for defending my sweet baby who was in pain. But I suppose it wasn’t the nicest thing to say or way to act.

  15. That time I was driving with my husband and we stopped at a 4 way stop not far from our house. I was making a left turn. As I was in the middle of the intersection, an oncoming car started to roll forward, so I slowed down. At that point the young bippy to my left laid on her horn and flipped me off. I slammed on my brakes, press the button to roll my window down, trying to throw it in park and figure out how to get out of my seatbelt. (To be fair, the car was new to me.) I was “calmly” trying to talk to the lovely who was swearing a bluestreak at me, remembering that swearing only lowers me to her level. At some point I realized there was no way I was figuring out how to get out of my car and turned to my large, formidable husband next to me and said, “Honey, get out of the car!”
    Chickie-Poo takes that opportunity to floor it around me and speeds off. At which point my handsome husband, the gentle giant that he is, tells me he was flipping her off the whole time.

    I am going with, I “4-way stopped” her a$$.

  17. This was brilliantly hilarious! It’s incredible how clearly your voice can be heard in your writing. The only time I can think of at the moment where I “went walmart” was once when I was working at Sonic and this coworker girl decided to call me a masochist for using a box-cutter to cut the boxes the boss asked me to cut. (????) She had never heard me speak before because “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.” So, instead of blowing up at her in a flurry of angry expletives, I just made scary eye contact, slowly dragged the knife down the middle of the nearest box, did that creepy-half-smile you see them do in the movies, and turned away. She left me alone after that… hahahha

  18. I actually went Wal-Mart in my front yard on my neighbor, in front of my kids! Oh the horror when I reflect back! That girl broke every rule when it came to our condo association! We only had 8 condos, why couldn’t she just play nice? She started by talking on her phone late at night in the courtyard that echoed like a megaphone, throwing cigarette butts in the courtyard where our small children played, paid her condo dues on occasion, then she just kept parking her car in front of our mail boxes! The mailman left a note in all of our mailboxes telling us how he couldn’t deliver the mail because of the car parked in front of the mailboxes. That was kinda it! I tried to kindly tell her what the mailman said and she said some choice words. I lost my mind! Forget that she knew my husband was the worship leader of the church a few blocks down! Come on over to my church, I will unleash my ungodly furry at unpredictable times. I will scream at the top of my lungs till I am gasping for air! I may have even peed my pants a little because of how I just let it all go! I scared myself! I scared my kids!
    I did apologize to my neighbor and I told my kids that I was wrong for acting a fool. Oh humanity! You plague us!😂

    1. Oh….this is gooooooold! You are the worship pastor’s wife….you may have even peed a little. I bow to you, Dina. So you went condo on her? Bahahaaaaaa!!!

  19. Sadly, I have never had this luxury … as a teacher in a small town, I can’t even let the road rage bird fly. So, bless you for sharing this experience so I may live vicariously through what must have been an amazing experience. You have a gift for raw truth that I adore. Thank you for sharing dear one!

  20. Ok, finally reading this and yes, I AM A NICE PERSON! You know, the kind that keeps her anger buried deeeeep down inside. Until her husband just pushed that bit too far. To be fair, I had two small children, one of whom was up every night. I was working 2 p-t jobs and not really sleeping and when I lost it, I lost it all. I don’t think I said a whole lot, but I did break a door. My poor, white-faced husband, who had never in our 8 years of marriage seen me ever loose it, didn’t quite know what to do. Smartly, he did exactly what I told him to. He just should have listened the first time.

          2. I have, fortunately for all doors as well as my husband, learned to better use my words. Although and occasional slam can still be heard.

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