Sweet Dreams are made of these

Dude, I think Walmart is out to get me.

It all starts off innocently enough. I carefully plan my meals, make my list, and slowly meander up and down every single aisle. As I check off the list, I also manage to find crap I didn't know I need or have been meaning to pick up. More ketchup, a new thermos for the ever forgetful and inadvertently destructive pinky, cinnamon raisin English muffins I didn't know I was craving until just then, etc. Before heading to one of the only three among 15 check out lanes that are open, I do a quick perusal of the cart. Out comes things I really don't need to be buying, off I send the monster children for the dish washing detergent I almost forgot. And yet, despite my best intentions, without fail, it occurs to me come Sunday morning that there's something I've forgotten.

Ugh.

Have you ever been in a Walmart in the South at 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon?

Double ugh.

Apparently, Walmart is out to get us all, particular women who enjoy tettering among pews in a pair of absolutely perfect nude round toe heels. But at least I'm not the only one hobbling about, shoving a cart down the aisles, trying to see how many points you can get from mowing down small children screetching over the doritos mommy won't buy for them (except that she totally will if the kid wails hard enough, you can tell.)

Chicken broth, onion, trellis line, cool whip. I repeat these words over and over to myself in a bid to stay focused.

Yeah, fat chance. I didn't make it out of the gardening section before somehow, mysteriously, there are four cells of begonias in my cart. What's that you say? I didn't need begonias?? But they were $1.48 per cell and they are going to look so cute nestled around the mini rose bushes that also inexplicably also ended up in my cart. Add the tomato cages, the jar of nutella, coconut kid's shampoo, quarter inch elastic, and hair clips for pinky. Now I'm headed towards check out, sweating from spending too much time in the gardening section with at least $35 dollars worth of crap I had no intention of buying when I pulled into the Walmart parking lot. Then I get to sit there and wait in one of three lanes among 15 that are actually open. Of course, if you stand there long enough, your cart seemingly multiplies with crap you're going to regret buying when you get home.

Did I mention sweating? Because really, that right there should have been a sign from God that there was stupidity afoot. I'm standing there, sweltering like a pig and not once does it occur to me that I'm going to have to dig out a place in the yard to shove the coleus I'm loading into the back of my car while my youngest screams in his car seat like man size mosquitos are eating his face.

And mother heifer! I forgot the trellis line!

Thank God Home Depot is right next door.