Just When I Thought It Was Safe To Go to Walmart With Blaine....

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When the music plays,

I hear the sound I had to follow,

Once upon a time,

Once beneath the stars,

The universe was ours...

("Your Wildest Dreams", Moody Blues)

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You know, I don't go to Walmart with Blaine very often---and I have very valid, sound reasons for not going.

First of all, Walmart is the size of 2 football fields. And I swear, it never fails that if we forget something, it is all the way back to a location of that exact 2 football fields of distance---which Blaine always makes ME go to retrieve the item---and so I end up having to walk the length of 2 football fields TWICE.....once to go get the item and twice to return to our current location.

But actually, I have other, more worrisom reasons for my hearty dislike of going to Walmart with Blaine.

Bless his heart, but that idgity Blaine is a very methodical, inquisitive, and stubborn creature. He approaches every situation as if for the first time. Especially when he's grocery shopping at Walmart. He does not "get into habits" when it comes to his shopping finesse, like I am. Allow me to explain:

For example, I have been buying groceries for my entire life. I think I know what I need by now. Especially in Walmart. So if I were to cruise into Walmart for groceries, it would only take me about 20 minutes for the entire trip since I know exactly what I want and where it is----the same crap I have wanted for decades---and so I can blaze a trail through crowded Walmart aisles at a speed of about 45 miles per hour, knocking hapless Walmart customers' buggies aside as I go---snatching the same old items I always buy--- and then bullying my way into the shortest cashier line.

But Blaine? HELL, he's a horse of a dang different color!

You would think that a grown man (who stayed a bachelor for all the years after I divorced him---but let's not speak of it) would damn well KNOW what in the hell he wants when he goes to a Super Walmart grocery center for the 3,829th time, right? But nooooooooo! He DOES KNOW what he wants...... but he just can't resist checking every single solitary detail of all the other competing brands of his preferred product EVERY DAMN TIME HE GOES INTO THERE.

I mean it, he actually does that EVERY time he goes! And it drives me mad!

For example, Blaine will go shopping for staples like olive oil, sugar, sugar substitute, coffee, milk, cat food, bread, beef, chicken, fish, coffee creamer, tomatoes, etc.----and you'd think those things wouldn't take an eternity to choose, right? He's been buying them for his entire lifetime.

But not Blaine. Don't you think he'd know by now what he always gets? Nooooooooo! For Blaine, unbelievably, it DOES take a frigging eternity. The following are the things Blaine examines before he buys the same damn things he's been buying his entire adult life:

1. Expiration date. He will literally check EVERY SINGLE item of whichever product he's buying to see if he can get the one with the furthermost expiration date. Do you think he'd be satisfied with a fairly far away expiration date? Noooooooo!!! He wants to get THE ABSOLUTELY FURTHERMOST expiration date of all the products on the shelf. I have nearly gone certifiably crazy at the times when he's checked 23 cartons of milk or 15 containers of cottage cheese for the furthermost expiration date.

2. Cost and details. Okay, by now I think Blaine should know how much orange juice costs, or how much his same old mineral water costs, or butter, or cheese, or whatever. And he always buys his favorite brands every single time he buys those items. So don't you think he'd just grab the same brands that he always gets? Nooooooooooooo! He checks the details and cost of his favorite brands of stuff against EVERY SINGLE OTHER BRAND OF that stuff---even though he KNOWS DAMN WELL which brand he's going to get, regardless of the cost! There have been ugly incidents in the past where I couldn't resist hollering at Blaine something to the effect of: "DADGUMMIT, Blaine! What in the hell are you looking for? Bionic balogney?!"

3. Coffee quality. I have never seen Blaine buy the same coffee twice. Literally. In all his complete adult life he has never bought the same coffee twice because he's always on the eternal quest for a better coffee bean blend, a new coffee-bean country of origin, a new coffee bean flavor (i.e. the one he bought today with supposed "subtle tones of cocoa" in it)---as if he's a Knight Templar searching for the dang Holy Grail! And not only that, but he's a coffee snob. No Folgers or Maxwell House for him. But about his search for the perfect coffee--- I mean, if it were left up to me, I'd pick out one good coffee that I know that I like and buy it every single time. But do you think that Blaine would settle on one coffee blend that he really likes? Noooooooooo! He's not happy till he's tried every dadgum coffee brand in the world from every single country in the world, from every coffee bean roast from plain to dark, every flavor from "Breakfast Blend" to "Nicaraguan grown", Starbucks brand to one of Whole Foods' Market's snooty brands, you name it. And, worse yet, he SNIFFS every single dadgum coffee bean in the same manner that connoisseurs inhale cognac fumes.

4. And then..... finally.... this is the WORST habit Blaine exhibits to torment me in Walmart...

Blaine is on a never-ending pursuit of embarassing the daylights out of me whenever we're in public. And why he chooses Walmart for this criminal act, I'll never know. I got so angry with him for his behavior once that I once refused to go to Walmart with him for months.

But yesterday, in a fit of weakness because he had bribed me with a shopping trip, I let my guard down and went with him to the Olathe Super Walmart to do a little grocery shopping with him.

It happened on the laundry detergent aisle...

I was strolling along, silently waiting for him to check every damn laundry detergent brand known to man, when it happened...

Suddenly, I heard the single most loudest, offensive, nauseating FART that I've ever heard in my life. I mean, it was not only loud and gross, but its detestable noise echoed down at least the next 3 aisles while its "fumes" wafted in all directions for a 40-foot radius. And at the end of the long fart (which sounded like a Louis Armstrong jazz trumpet) it gave a couple of extra "pops" just for good measure!

A DAMN TRIPLE!

I was positively mortified. I mean, this wasn't just a normal fart. This was a pathological fart. So I looked around to see what kind of creature on earth had produced it..... and then, just as I dreaded and suspected, I saw.....

... that the deadly fart had come from Blaine. And there he stood, in all his farting glory, gazing at me with that mischievious look I know so well...

....and then he exclaimed loudly, for all the Olathe Super Walmart customers and workers to hear:

"BO!!!! How COULD you???!!!!"

And, instantly, every single shopper and Walmart employee within 200 feet stared at me in horror and disgust.

To say I was embarassed is an understatement. I was so horrified that I turned and fled down 6 aisles to the vegetable section, where I cowered behind the onion bin--- trying to recover by convincing myself that nobody in the vegetable section had seen or heard the whole horrific incident.

Unfortunately, in only a few minutes, every single person who'd been on the laundry detergent aisle came ambling down to the vegetable section in the natural flow of the product aisles, straight to where I was standing, where I stood breathing heavily from my desperate sprint--- whereupon they all began giving me angry scowls as they spied me huddling in shame behind the onion bin.

Oh, the humanity!

And, in a minute or so, Blaine appeared too, pushing our buggy while laughing his fool ass off.

I threw him an exasperated glance and hissed: "I'm going to do the exact same thing to you some day!"

He just kept on laughing, knowing I'd never have the nerve to do it....

...nor the farting skill...

You know, if farting were an Olympic sport, Blaine would always win the Gold....

Sigh...

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