Week 51: Why are people nuts tonight?

Normally I go out to buy some groceries each Saturday.  That’s just my usual thing.  Usually it’s not that big of a deal, I go and get what I need and go back home.  There are always people out, but it’s nothing crazy.  Tonight, it was different.

People were manic out there tonight!  It was like a natural disaster was about to hit and people were desperate to stock up!  I understand it’s the last weekend before Christmas, but damn!  

First of all, it was dangerous just to drive to the grocery store!  People drive dangerously in Las Vegas, but tonight it seemed like people were just out of control.  They were running red lights and stop signs, racing down the road going way over the speed limit.  People seemed desperate to get where ever they were going.

Forgetting the crazy driving, I did carefully make my way around to run my errands.  One stop I made was a store called Walmart.  It’s a large department store that sells just about anything you need.  I just needed a few toiletries and figured I could run in and out fairly quickly.  Silly me!  There were people everywhere!  And not just people everywhere, they were shoving everything they could into their carts!  I saw one guy with ten bottles of shampoo and a gallon of milk.  Is he going to run out of shampoo before Christmas?  Maybe he was giving shampoo away for Christmas and needed a large supply?  It was insane, it was as if people were “hurricane shopping”.  You know, out buying things before a hurricane, or some other kind of natural disaster.  

I quickly found the things I needed and dropped them into my cart (trolley, basket, or whatever you want to call it.).  I figured while I was there I might as well check the grocery section.  Stuff was flying off the shelves there!  The chip (crisps?) section was decimated!  Just like the rest of the store people seemed to be grabbing everything they could.  I decided I would rather fight people at a normal grocery store instead of Walmart, so I paid for my items and headed out, again braving the crazy drivers until I could make it to my usual grocery store. (It’s a place called Winco.). Winco had a lot of people in it, but it wasn’t as crazy as Walmart.  Things seemed a bit easier here.  People weren’t as mainic, but things were still flying off the shelves.  Luckily I did get the things I needed today.  

Another new thing is that I’m typing this week’s blog on a brand new iMac.  So far my experience with this new tech has been spent waiting for it to update itself.  It will take a bit of getting used to as it is different than my PC, but so far I’m loving it!  Time to take a few lessons in Final Cut Pro so I’ll be ready to edit my first video in two weeks!  

So again yes, next week will be the final blog for 52 weeks of Why.  I will have blogged for each of the 52 weeks. Except for one week.  I wrote that I was depressed for one week and didn’t do a blog.  But missing only one week is pretty good I think!  

2018 will be the year of video for me.  I’ll hopefully be recording and uploading a video each week with what goes on in my life.  I’d like to go to a few restaurants, maybe visit a few museums, and show off a few of the things around here in Las Vegas besides the casinos.  Maybe next year at this time I can show some video of the manic people?  Anything is possible.

So until the videos start, keep asking why.  I’ll be back with one last blog next week.

Week 47: Why Black Friday and Saturday didn't seem black to me.

This weekend was what is called “Black Friday”.  The day after American Thanksgiving is usually a madhouse at the stores.  People have to get the Black Friday bargains!  There are usually fights and stampedes and all kinds of chaos!  I wanted to see all of this for this year.  I can remember wanting to go to the mall last year, but there was nowhere to park.  Every single parking space was taken the Saturday after Black Friday last year!  I couldn’t even park my car!

This year was different.  I went to the mall today and there were plenty of parking spaces.  I walked into the mall to look around and there were people all over the place, but most of them didn’t seem to be buying anything.  Most of them were just standing around and staring at cell phones.

I didn’t find much to interest me at the mall.  The place also had a really strong smell of incense, soap, and perfume.  Maybe there were other scents, but it seemed to me like those were the prevailing scents.  It would have been nice to smell cotton candy, or maybe cinnamon, or something a bit more Christmasy, but no, just the strong soap and perfume smell.  Almost enough to make you sick.

And so I moved on.  I figured maybe people were in the huge department stores like Target.  So I drove to a nearby Target.  Plenty of parking spaces and again lots of people inside, but the cashiers didn’t seem busy at all.  I picked up some almond M&Ms and used the self-checkout lane without waiting in any kind of line.  Lots of people in the store, but again no one buying anything.  Just a lot of people staring at cell phones.

Maybe the people were all at the grocery stores getting food?  Nope!  I drove to two different stores to get my groceries and didn’t have to wait in a line to buy anything.

I think online shopping is more popular than ever this year.  People will go out and look in the stores, but don’t seem to be buying.  I’d rather stay home and hang out than go out and stare at a cell phone in a mall!

Moving on, tomorrow is my birthday.  I’ll be turning 51 years old.  I’m fat, old, and cranky now.  You can say “No, 51 isn’t old, it’s middle age”, but I think you’d be wrong.  I really doubt I’ll live to 102 which means I’m past “middle age”.  I’m not totally unhappy, though.  I’ll have to work for my birthday night, but that won’t be so bad.  I think it will be better than if I was unemployed for my birthday.  I’ll hopefully be thrilled when I’m retired and don’t have to go to work for my birthday, but by the time I have enough to retire on, I may be too old to do anything, or go anywhere!  I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

So for week 47 I wonder why this Black Friday didn’t seem so black.  Is everyone really buying all their presents online?  As Alice would say, “Curiouser and curiouser”.  Down the rabbit hole we go!  Time to celebrate my birthday a day early this year and watch some movies and play a few video games.  Until next week when I’m officially 51, keep asking why.

Week 32: Why I went to Walmart

Usually on my days off I’ll make a trip to a grocery store called Winco.  Winco is a very nice place and usually has the groceries I need for the week.  I’m happy to go there and they usually have pretty good prices.  This week, I was relaxing, and tired, and figured I would instead go to Walmart and see what I could find.  Walmart usually has more expensive groceries, but they also occasionally get some odd things and I was in the mood for odd things.

For those of you reading this who don’t know what Walmart is, here’s a web site to show you a few photos from Walmarts around the US:

People of Walmart

Yes, it’s a bit low class, but there’s a fairly nice one a bit up the road from me.  I figured I could stop there and look around and then maybe go to Winco for the real groceries.  After getting to Walmart though, I felt a bit lazy and figured maybe I could just spend the few extra dollars and get all my groceries there for one stop.

First off, Walmart is full of screaming children.  This seems to be at all hours of the night too, because the place is open 24 hours a day.  I’ve been in there at 3am hearing kids screaming at the top of their lungs.  I don’t know what it is with people bringing screaming children out to shop!  There are usually one or two screaming kids at Winco, but not to the extent of Walmart!

Anyway, I begin looking around and stop at the egg section.  Eggs are a bit expensive here.  The brown eggs are REALLY expensive!  What the hell is so special about a brown chicken egg anyway?  I’ve never understood that?  Do they come from chocolate chickens or something?

I do need some eggs, but I don’t need eggs bad enough to pay for the brown ones.  Into the cart (or trolley, or basket, or whatever you want to call it) they go.  Next I end up in the frozen food section.  I come across this:

Deep Fried Chocolate Twinkies…that are also frozen.  Who the hell is buying this stuff?  Yes, that’s something somewhat new and original, but damn!  I won’t be paying for those.  As a matter of fact, I’m not certain I’d accept one if you tried to give it to me for free!  I don’t find regular Twinkies to be especially good, let alone chocolate, fried, and frozen ones!

There has to be better frozen stuff to try!  I go a bit further and find something else.  I was so stunned by the stuff I was looking at, I apparently forgot to take a photo!  It was Doritos Loaded Jalapeno & Cheese.  Not chips, but some kind of Doritos thing loaded with liquid cheese.  This I need to try.  It's a bit expensive, but what the hell!  There were actually a few flavors, but the Jalapeño and cheese looked good to me.  Into the cart they went!

Now as I’m walking around, I come across some new M&Ms.  I absolutely LOVE M&Ms!  These are new flavors, though.  The first one is called Pecan Pie.  I don’t think I’ve ever tried pecan pie before, so I’m not sure if I would like an M&M flavor that tastes like that.  I once bought some Vanilla Cupcake M&Ms and they tasted exactly like vanilla cupcakes, so I have to assume the pecan pie M&Ms taste exactly like pecan pie.  I’ll have to take a pass.  There’s also a White candy corn flavor, but if I wanted to eat candy corn, I would buy candy corn.  I can’t figure out why you would want M&Ms that taste like that.

Next I happened upon the chip aisle.  Now Lays is always trying out new chip flavors.  Some look good, and some look awful to me.  The good ones I’ll sometimes pay for and give them a shot.  Why not, it’s only a couple of dollars, right?  And so here we go, Fried Green Tomato wavy chips?  Or Bacon wrapped jalapeno popper chips.  Well, I’ve already got the Doritos molten cheese things in my cart, might as well try to Bacon wrapped chips.  Now to be clear, the chips aren’t actually wrapped in bacon, that’s just the flavor (supposedly).  It really would be neat to have bacon wrapped Lays chips, though!

Enough of Walmart!  Finally after getting a few other things I head for the check out counter.  They have one girl working and she’s obviously the slowest person they could hire.  I could have went to the self check-out registers, but they never have enough room to put all my stuff before I pay!  So I wait and wait and think about how my milk and ice cream are getting warm.  (Yes, I also bought some double chocolate Klondike bars.  YUMMY!)

On the drive home, I can hear this weird squeaking.  I start wondering if there’s a problem with my car.  Finally I realize it’s the damned egg carton that’s made of Styrofoam squeaking!  The eggs at Winco come in a cardboard kind of package.  I’m never buying eggs from Walmart again now!  That noise was driving me crazy for the whole drive home!  GAH!

So why did I go to Walmart this week?  I don’t know.  Actually, I do know.  It was to buy some more black socks.  I should have then went to Winco.  I’ll stay away from Walmart for a while now.  Until I make the mistake and go back anyway, keep asking why.