Freaks at Wal-Mart

So I'm wandering through Wal-Mart the other day, looking for a pair of gloves, and on the way to the register I pass by a lovely middle-aged woman.
Well, lovely if you're a total psycho.
This woman looked to be in her late 50s or early 60s, and had the baggy face skin to prove it. Only, she's wearing a big, dark black wig that looks as if she stole it from the gift shop of Graceland. And a rose tattoo on her neck. And, I shit you not, a ring in her nose. A fucking ring. In the nose. Of a 60-year-old woman. Good freaking god. What, did the tattoo parlor not have enough ink to do a butterfly on her sagging lower back?

Sadly, this is not the best freakshow I've ever seen in the land of cheap Chinese imports and rock-bottom prices.
No, that would be the man wearing a T-shirt that says "Real Men Lick Pussy."
At 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
It's been a few years since I saw that, but the chain of events that went into wearing that shirt in public still boggles my mind. First, you have to be dumb/drunk enough to buy it. Then you have to go without doing laundry long enough (at least a month, I'd imagine) to have absolutely nothing else clean. Finally, you have to actually think to yourself, "Hey man, this looks good. Think I'll wear this." And then, since the guy looked to be in his 40s, I'd assume he has to get it past the wife. It's like pitching a perfect game. So many things have to break just right, and when they do something memorable happens.

I love these people. They entertain me. I just wonder why they all gravitate to Wal-Mart. Is there some kind of freak vortex swirling around this place?
Anybody else got freak stories to share?

 

If Wal-Mart bothers you that much, don't fucking go.

 

He didn't say it bothered him. He said he was entertained by it. Jeebus.

 

The other 'freaks' are all at the organic food store.

 

I don't know, man. Maybe the guy's friend gave the shirt to him as a Festivus present. That's how I got this one.

 

Have we discovered a sect of "Wal-Mart Apologists?"

 

"freaks at wal-mart" is redundant.

and palli, no i don't go. i pay a coupla bucks more at another store that doesn't draw society's bottom feeders, and it's worth every penny.

 

Society's bottom feeders are everywhere, TP, even here.

But is this goes past a page or so, it'll just degenerate into another "Wal-Mart sucks" thread.

 

A. bottom feeders are everywhere, they just congregate at the mart.

B. saying wal-mart sucks is kinda like saying the sun is hot. you really can't fault people for stating the obvious.

 

You got a preview of what every rest home is going to look like in 40 years.

 

My favorite Wal-Mart story happened at least five years ago. I was playing designated driver for my two friends because I wasn't 21 yet. I drove to the bowling alley and one of them, Fat Mike, was drunk off his ass, so I loaded him into the car and we start driving home.

Fat Mike, who was in the management training program at the local Wal-Mart, says, "Guys, I want to buy a movie. Let's go to Wal-Mart." Kevin, always the straight-laced responsible one, quickly says, "No, Mike. We're not taking you to Wal-Mart. You're drunk." Then I said, "Like fuck we're not. It'll be hilarious."

We stroll into the store around 2 a.m. and start walking to the electronics section. Fat Mike waddles past people he knows, saying his quiet hellos while trying to walk a straight line, guiding himself by the grooves in the tiles. And as we turn the corner into the electronics section, we see two third-shift workers -- a big, black dude and a skanky, little, white girl -- talking. All we heard was the end of their conversation, uttered by the skany, little, white girl: "Yeah, well gonorrhea ain't nuttin' to clap about."

In complete fucking shock, the three of us held our laughter inside until we turned into racks of DVDs. Then I asked the others if what I heard was correct. They ensured me it was. Fat Mike picked up Office Space and The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave and we head home.

Now I can't walk into a Wal-Mart after 11 p.m. without thinking about gonorrhea.

 

I can't wait to see the elderly people with spacers in their ears, inching across the dining room in their walkers.