I might be running out of good material to write about, as the low-hanging fruit in our town and neighborhood has already been picked. ‘Low-hanging fruit’ refers to topics or ideas that are easy to write about because they’re familiar, straightforward, and commonly discussed.
These include personal anecdotes, popular trends, well-known events, and topics extensively covered in the media, such as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Taking the easy way out, I tackled these subjects first because they required less research and creative effort compared to more complex, obscure, and off-limits topics, such as family and friends.
Telling my wife, Joleen, that I finally reached writer’s block, a goal I’ve not achieved before, she suggested a few topics, with Walmart being one of them. I’ve never written about our trips to Walmart, figuring they weren’t print-worthy.
Everyone goes to Walmart, including the Clintons, with nothing out of the ordinary ever happening there, at least I’ve never seen or read about anything terribly strange occurring at ours.
People sometimes walk the wrong direction in Walmart aisles, yet they do that in all stores. The right side is for all traffic going forward, while the left is for the opposite. This might not seem like a big deal, but it can be if a person’s not paying close attention.
I’ve never had a big problem because I walk slowly, as older people are expected to. With a fully loaded buggy and wheels that don’t easily turn, moving too fast without brakes is an invitation to sideswipe someone. Thankfully, that’s never happened to me, but I have lightly ‘tapped’ the back of a few shoes, namely, Joleen’s.
Folks sometimes wear strange clothing in these stores, with the Walmart in Kingman easily beating out the one in Lake Havasu City in this department. That might have something to do with I-40 being close by Kingman and lots of California travelers dropping in.
During the last holiday season, just for kicks, I walked up to a life-size cardboard replica of Patrick Mahonnes in Walmart, jokingly asking where the Pop-Tarts were. Joleen saw what I was doing and quickly scurried ahead to escape the embarrassment.
A female employee with red hair, who’s been there for many years, evidently overheard my question and walked over, telling me, with a straight face, that they were next to the cereal section. Caught off guard, I didn’t expect this, with me saying, “Thank you!” in return.
Strangely enough, that woman didn’t act as if ‘my comedy routine’ was anything out of the ordinary. Joleen later told me that some Walmart shoppers undoubtedly chatted with that cardboard replica all the time, and that it was no big deal to workers. To that seasoned clerk, I was just another one of their “special customers.”
I like to write junk... 