Late night shopping in the ghetto

I'm a pretty smart person, but sometimes I do some really dumb things. For example, when I got off work early the other night (9:30pm), I figured I'd go across the street to the 24 hour Walmart and pick up a few things. Keep in mind, this is the ghetto. I needed mascara and some 3M hooks. However, as I perused the aisles, I kept seeing other things to add to the cart, including some weights and multigrain cereal.

By the time I got through the line up (hooray for understaffing!), it was 11pm. I called Sea from the customer service desk, but she was sleeping and I felt guilty having her get out of bed to come get me, so I told her I'd be fine. I grabbed my four awkward heavy bags, my purse, and headed to the bus stop. I was just in time to see it drive away. Sucky. Oh yeah, did I mention I left my bus schedule at home? I had no idea when the next one was coming.

So I sat down and ate Pringles. Original. I'm addicted to them these days. Perhaps they've taken the place of cookies, I'm not sure.


It was getting cold. My bus loops around the mall and back before it picks me up, so I figured that if I crossed the road and caught the bus going the other way, I could get out of the cold about ten minutes sooner. Fantastic. Hmmm. So, I shuffled down the road in the snow with my bags. Stupid weights. My bag started to tear and the handles were stretching out while simultaneously cutting my fingers. Stupid bags. I put them down and ate more Pringles. Mmmm, salty goodness. I picked up my bags and continued, stopping every 10 metres for some chips. The container may or may not have been half gone by the time the midnight bus came. Cough cough.


On the other side of the mall, the bus waits for about five minutes to ensure it's on schedule. Cool. While waiting, five guys in their late teens or early twenties started giving the bus driver some grief. So he left one of them behind and we took off. They were pissed and cussed in the back. In the Plexiglas in front of me I watched their reflection behind me. Sketchy. At one point they talked about some sort of drugs they bought (I'm suspecting it wasn't pot) and blah blah blah. Then one of them, still pissed at the bus driver, showed one of the others a weapon he had below the back of the seat. A gun?! A knife?! Shit.

One of the guys told the others to keep it cool. Four of them got off at the next stop. I breathed again. Stupid Walmart. Stupid bus. Stupid me for not getting a cab or insisting Sea pick me up.