Okay. I've had it!

This message is for everyone who shops at Wal-Mart,Target, HEB, Albertsons, Super S or anywhere you take your purchases from the store to your vehicle in a cart. Yeah! That means YOU!

Today I went to Wal-Mart to buy some stuff. Since I live in a tourist town, the only place to buy a pillow on Sunday that doesn't have decorative stitching on it is Wal-Mart. (And there are people who want to get rid of chains here. Hell, then the only thing we'd have left are all the tourist shops on Main Street!) Anyway, I pull into the parking lot, and spot a gap in the parked cars up near the front door.

The space is open because it's got three shopping carts in it. Do I need to add that the cart corral was across the lane?! Three people couldn't be bothered to cross the lane and put their carts up! What? They couldn't wait two minutes to rip into the 12 pound bag of Ruffles that's available only at Wal-Mart?

I was going to stop the car, get out, put up the carts and park, but three people exited the store, and all the cars in the parking lot froze, waiting to see where the people were parked. By the time traffic started flowing, there was a guy in a Hummer behind me honking. Since the bigger the SUV the bigger the asshole driving it, and I didn't want to have to deal with an asshole, I continued trolling for a spot. Naturally, the guy in the Hummer pulled into the space, knocking the carts into other peoples' cars.

I find a space not blocked by a cart, go into the store, spend my twenty bucks, and return to my car. Naturally, a woman twice my size and four times my checking balance, judging by the stuff in the cart, is unloading her stuff in the back seat of her Suburban, wedging the door of her car against the driver's side of my van with the cart. As soon as she unloads, she smiles, unwedges the cart, leaves it where it sits, and goes to the driver's side of her car and climbs in! She pulls out and leaves. Before I can skirt the cart and head for my car, a Dodge Dakota begins nosing into the space, forcing me into a trot. Trust me. No one should see me trot!

I watch the driver of the Dakota walk up to the front of the store, and take a cart proffered by one of the greeters. I backed my van out of my space, and, accompanied by the honks of the jerks behind me, got the heck out of Dodge.

I had to make one more stop. It was Sunday, I was out of beer, need I say more?

I get to HEB only to learn that Shiner Bock had gone from $9.99 to $11.99. Bastards! They're doing everything they can to get me to drink really cheap beer.

Fortunately, the cart fetchers at HEB had cleared out the parking spaces, so I found a spot pretty close to the door nearest the beer section, and went inside. I buy some beer, and leave the store. By the time I get outside, empty carts were scattered about the parking lot like corpses on a civil war battlefield. Carts were on the grass in the "nature islands" at the end of each row, on the stripes between the handicapped spaces, propped against light poles, and, get this, one was parked nose against a pillar of the store behind which all the carts were kept! That person could only get three fucking feet from the carts before his time ran out?!

So for all you people who are too fucking busy to put your carts in the corrals, be advised: I'm busier than you! I don't have time to put the cart up. In fact, my time is so much more valuable than yours that I'm going to be leaving my cart in the middle of the traffic lane!

Thanks for being so considerate of others, you jerks!

JeffreyHolt.com
TexasBreweries.com