My wife, Leigh, and I shop at Walmart regularly. Guilty as charged.
I know some people speak of Walmart as if admitting you shop there is a moral failing, like confessing you eat cereal for supper or still have a VCR blinking 12:00 in the guest room. But the truth is, Walmart usually has what we need, and at a price competitive enough to make a retired man stand up a little straighter.
Having said that, there is another price to be paid.
It is not listed on the receipt. It does not show up as a service charge, environmental fee, or surprise tax. It is more spiritual than financial. It is paid in patience, nerve endings, and the occasional desire to abandon your cart in Hardware and walk silently into the Florida heat.
Shopping at the Walmart in Brooksville is not really shopping. It is more like participating in a full-contact roller derby without skates, uniforms, rules, or a whistle.
It begins in the parking lot.
On a summer day, the Walmart parking lot off Cortez Boulevard can look less like a place to park and more like the staging area for a countywide evacuation. Cars stretch in every direction. Pickup trucks idle. Shopping carts roll loose across the asphalt like tumbleweeds with bad intentions. The heat comes up off the pavement in waves, and by the time Leigh and I reach the front doors, I have already lost 3 pounds and part of my will to live.
Leigh, being wiser than I am, has developed a Walmart survival strategy.
“Get in, get what we need, and don’t make eye contact,” she says.
This is good advice. Unfortunately, I often write about life, which means I make eye contact with civilization’s loose wires.
Inside, Walmart greets you with that familiar blast of cold air, fluorescent lighting, and human theater. There is always a greeter, and I admire them. Anyone who can stand near the entrance of a Brooksville Walmart and calmly welcome the public deserves either a medal or hazard pay.
Our first obstacle is usually the aisle blockade.
Every Walmart has them. These are shoppers who do not merely shop in an aisle. They occupy it. They settle in. They plant a flag. They appear to have selected that exact stretch between Little Debbie and Hostess as a temporary no-go zone for other shoppers.
On our last trip, Leigh and I encountered a couple studying pastries with the seriousness of NASA engineers inspecting a moon rocket. Their electric carts were positioned diagonally across the aisle, one facing north, one facing west, creating a retail version of the Panama Canal crisis.
They were debating whether to buy a carton of Danish with strawberries and cream filling or a large box of Oreo Cakesters. This was apparently not a simple decision. It required discussion, reflection, mumbling, hand gestures, and occasional input from a small yappy dog riding along with them.
The dog had opinions.
It barked at me as if I were attempting to steal national secrets from the snack-cake section.
Meanwhile, their shopping cart was already stacked high with enough ready-to-eat foods, pastries, chips, and sweets to make a cardiologist abandon medicine and open a bait shop.
I did what any brave husband would do. I looked at Leigh.
Leigh looked at me with the expression married women reserve for husbands who are about to say something they should not say in public.
So I said nothing.
This is one of the reasons I am still married.
Eventually, the couple moved just enough for us to squeeze through sideways, the way explorers pass through narrow canyon walls in documentaries.
Once free, we entered the main traffic pattern. Walmart traffic has its own laws. They are not Florida laws. They are not federal laws. They may not even be laws of physics.
There are people who stop suddenly in the middle of an aisle for no reason known to science. There are people who push carts while staring at their phones. There are people who back up without warning, like dump trucks, only without the courtesy beeping. There are children who dart from behind cereal displays as if released from a trap door.
Then there are the alcoholic beverage connoisseurs.
These shoppers move with purpose. They are not browsing. They are on a mission. Their carts become chrome demolition derby buggies, guided through Walmart with the confidence of Indy car drivers and the steering accuracy of a shopping cart with one bad wheel, which is most of them.
You will see one come around the corner near the beer aisle with a 12-pack, a bottle of something brown, two frozen pizzas, and a look that says the weekend has already begun and it is only Tuesday.
Other shoppers beware.
I admire their confidence. I just don’t want to be clipped in the ankle by their front wheel while I’m reaching for low-sodium soup.
At our age, Leigh and I also have prescriptions for this and that, which means no trip to Walmart is complete without visiting the pharmacy. I do not know whether Dante ever wrote about standing in line at a Walmart pharmacy, but if he had, it would have fit nicely somewhere between Purgatory and the return counter.
The pharmacy line often resembles the chow line on my first day of basic training at Fort Benning, except drill sergeants were organized and didn’t ask questions about insurance deductibles.
Everyone in line has a story. Often, a long story that involves a doctor, a refill, a computer, a coupon, a second insurance card, a phone call, a missing prescription, a misunderstanding, and at least one sentence beginning with, “But they told me last time…”
On one visit, I stood behind a gentleman who discovered his doctor had not approved a refill. This news did not improve his mood. Then his credit card had a disagreement with the machine. The pharmacist remained calm, which I found impressive, because I was already calculating whether my blood pressure medication was worth the risk of staying in line long enough to retrieve it.
At that moment, I made an executive decision.
“Leigh,” I said, “I believe the drive-through pharmacy window has been placed on this earth for a reason.”
She rolled her eyes, smiled and nodded.
We continued our shopping, navigating around the frozen foods, the clothing racks, and the mysterious middle aisles where Walmart sells everything from windshield wipers to birdseed to decorative pillows that say, “Bless This Mess,” which seems more like a warning label than comforting message.
And yet, we keep going back.
That is the great mystery.
For all the chaos, Walmart has what we need. The prices are good. The selection is wide. The people-watching is unmatched. You may go in for paper towels, bananas and toothpaste, realizing America is still great even if slightly overheated and improperly parked.
Walmart is the place where all of us show up as we are: tired, hot, hungry, impatient, hopeful, confused, under-caffeinated, over-caffeinated, and occasionally accompanied by a barking dog.
So yes, Leigh and I will be back.
We will park somewhere near southern Georgia, hike across the asphalt, dodge the carts, salute the greeter, avoid eye contact when possible, and enter the arena once more.
Because the prices are good.
And because we know shopping at Walmart requires love, patience and the ability to laugh as we navigate meandering electric carts, demolition buggies and pharmacy counter melt downs.
Larry D. Clifton is a native Floridian, a graduate of Eckerd College and the author of the science fiction thriller “Martin’s Secret,” available at Barnes & Noble. He lives in Brooksville.