Picture this for me if you will, I hobble into the main entrance of the downtown two story evil empire known as Walmart, late on a Monday night. Of course it is crowded even though it is well after 10:00pm. Following close behind me is Karina the Russian and her two overly tired children. All of the motorized shopping carts are currently being used  by other invalids or teens looking for a cheap thrill, so our only option is to use a creaky wheelchair. We hide my crutches behind the glowing Coca-Cola machine and set out for a shopping adventure.

The youngest Russian child, Pasha, is looking overwhelmed so I tell her to come sit on my lap. Her disheveled hair is giving my disheveled hair a run for it’s money. We are both in pajamas and look like the princess-zombies of the apocalypse. Since we need someone to push our blue craptastic chariot – that someone being Karina – that leaves the older Russian child, Dimitri,who is a mere six years old, left to push the shopping cart.

This shopping outing was to buy enough groceries to fill my new house, which until this point consisted of martini olives in the fridge, so you can imagine, we had a long way to go. As our zombie-princess-wheelchair-voluptuous Russian-child-labor entourage weaved up and down each isle collecting the essentials of bread, frozen skillets, frozen pizzas, frozen waffles, bananas, coffee and ant killer the cart became heavier and heavier.

Poor Dimitri, who can’t even see over the top of the cart, had to put all of his weight into each turn and kept running into the back of Karina with the cart. I’m sure it had to have hurt like hell, but Karina stayed surprisingly calm, even after the fourth time of having her ankles rammed.

An hour later, our train made it’s way to the longest checkout line in history. Pasha kept climbing on and off of her princess perch. Dimitri kept bringing candy and toys from the check out isles that he “really needed” over to us. Karina and I couldn’t be bothered by his need to have M&M’s and new ear phones because we were too busy looking through an entire issue of Vogue magazine – the line was that long.

I paint this picture for you for two reasons. The first so that you can see how the mighty have fallen. From fancy cocktail parties and free concerts to being wheeled through a Walmart where a man in a stained wifebeater, dirty cut off shorts and a trucker hat was actually judging me. The second being that if you happen to come across my picture on The People of Walmart website, will you please let me know?

That’s one claim to fame I do not want to miss.

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Summer Anklegate, K to the R stories