Full Summer



The view from the front porch is perfect with the crape myrtle just beginning to bloom and promising a wonderful fucsia profusion of flowers for all of July. The hummingbirds are still feeding their nestlings there. I must fill the feeders almost every day.
I am preparing for the first day of Art Camp on Saturday. I reorganized the bins of materials, now neatly labeled and inviting. For the first session we will be making clay artifacts (aka lumps), and set them to dry and then to be fired before the next session. So I have cut the pristine bars of earthenware clay into manageable hunks and prepared bins of tools and spray bottles of water. I have also prepared another activity of making stickers. The balls for net games have been inflated, bug repellant is at the ready, and tables have been set out. I have engaged some volunteers to help and I am ready!
My spouse will be a lifeguard at the pool, and I am hoping to engage some of the moms to help with the lunch.
Ye gads! The lunch! I am going to have tuna salad (full of vegetables), whole wheat sandwich rolls, organic no sugar peanut butter, all fruit jam, cheese cubes, carrot sticks and tomatoes and peppers from the garden. Watermelon and bananas and water to drink.
So, with this in mind I went to our local super Walmart to stock up.
I rarely go there, but since I needed some containers of glue, tape, glue gun supplies etc., in addition to the food, it seemed a good choice.
I found everything I wanted except for the marbles. When looking for the marbles I came across a couple of kids in the toy department. (No Walmart employees are in evidence) They were spinning hula hoops and lobbing basketballs wherever they wanted. They were awful and awesome. So I engaged them in my hunt for marbles. We looked everywhere, hooting to each other.
"Look in the games place!" "Try the lego place!" We couldn't find them anywhere and decided that some kind of strange ping pong ball might do. I love these chance encounters.
Then I had everything I came for and I headed toward the checkout, wending my way between the scooters and carts of extremely fat people. Three times people in scooters asked me to hand them something they couldn't reach and I was happy to do it. The store should issue grabbers with the scooters.
I see a check out line but it says 'twenty items!' so I proceed to the next line.
Turns out that this line has a new checker with an experienced checker behind her. For some reason I always seem to get in the line of novice checkers. My karma. So, I start unloading all the stuff - the glue guns, the two enormous watermelons, the adhesive googly eyes, the masking tape, and all the lunch stuff and a bale of toilet paper.
And then I notice the dead silence.
In back of me are about fifteen people to check out. They are regarding me with such reptilian loathing and I don't know why. Finally, the woman in back of me says, "This is a quick check out line. Right there it says 'Twenty items or less'."
I hate Walmart, especially the Super Walmart. I don't know the protocol, I am not fat enough or savvy enough.
"What?", I say. "I thought this line was fine! I moved over from the other line."
All those good people patiently standing in line behind me with their fewer than twenty items regard me with distaste. The super checker is friendly and assures me that everything is o.k. (but please look at the twenty item or fewer rule next time. Please look at the overhead cone that designates what check out aisle you should enter.)
Meanwhile the very new checker is struggling with my $200 order and my desire to pack it into the weird grocery bags I have brought.
I am swiveling my head to note these cones for future reference. As the new checker slowly moves all the stuff over the console, I feel I must say something, make a statement, do a dance, whatever, to mollify these stony faced folks who are waiting in line.
I have swiped my card, and I proceed back down the line of waiting customers to tell them thanks, I didn't mean ill, I was ignorant, forgive me. I offer the woman behind me a banana. No dice. Finally I play the Pity card and tell them that a) I am not familiar with this store, and b) I am buying all this stuff for a free camp for Mexican migrant kids. No one took me up on the free bananas.
As I take off fast with my cart overfilled with stuff in strange bags, I call out my thanks.
They still look like snakes.