Wednesday, October 17, 2007

I let my man sleep with another woman

What I love more than anything else about working at the House of Wal is the fascinating peek I get behind the socio-economic curtain of the lives of the people who shop there. And who really seem to live there.

Case in point. This female (not yet a woman) comes up to Customer Service on Saturday morning. Thankfully it was fairly quiet at the time. She’s wearing a pair of pajama bottoms with flaming eight-balls blazoned all over them and a pair of pink fuzzy slippers. Her shirt reads “So Much Work To Do – So Few People To Do It For Me.” She is in such desperate need of a bra that I seriously consider going to buy her one out of my pocket. I just can’t handle the distraction of those gigantic deflated soccer balls banging around in my face.

She’s toting a tiny baby in filthy romper. No shoes and the diaper looks to be full. Very full. sniff, sniff Yep. Very, very full.

She needs the phone book.

Apparently, she was having the battery replaced on her car and “accidentally” left her purse, wallet and credit cards at home when she decided to run out to Wal-Mart for a new battery. Uh-huh. Because I always go to Wal-Mart with a eight-month-old baby, no diapers and no purse.

So now she’s got to call someone (never did hear who) at their work to bring her some money so she can get the car out of hock so SHE can go to work. Because she’s already late for work. Because the car wouldn’t start. And she’s got to go home and take a shower. And drop the baby off at somebody’s.

She hollers on the phone for a while. I hear the phrase “Well, can’t you just ride the bike over here?” Kali on a crutch – don’t they have any working cars?

She seems satisfied, because she bangs the phone down and settles down on the bench to wait. Of course, she turns out to be a talker and the baby turns out to be a howler, so she winds up wandering around Customer Service trying to keep the child quiet.

During the twenty minute wait, while I’m trying to clean out buggies of returns left me by the overnight staff – and listening to her howler screech with glee at Halloween costumes – she drops all these nuggets.

1. “Yeah. My baby dirty. She had a banana for dinner last night. It was kind of black, but she ate it anyway.” Good parenting never goes out of style.
2. “It was never the same after I let my man sleep with that other girl.” She repeated this one several times. It was clearly an issue, even if she protested that it wasn't. It kept finding its way back into the not-conversation we were NOT having.
3. “We had other women in our life, but not like that.” HOW WERE THEY IN YOUR LIFE BEFORE? As occasional furniture? Brunette coffee tables perhaps? Personally, I thought blonde was the IT color for lamps at PEOPLEKEA!
4. “I’m friends with both of them now.” Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.
5. “That other woman, she 18 now. I can’t get mad at my man for running off with her. He’s good to my baby now. We all live together.” What the hell? Is this a commune or just some seriously screwed up mess?
6. “We had this doll, about a foot tall. My baby likes to hump it. She love to hump that doll.” This baby gonna be trouble.
7. “We had to burn the doll. My man thought it was like Chucky or something. It would move around the house. When we burned it, it smelled like meat. And it didn’t look like plastic.” There was more - details about the "Chucky" doll and its adventures. I kept looking for Jennifer Tilly to show up or something.
8. “That doll, we got it from a homeless shelter. Some dude give it to us. Here, you want a doll?” Because accepting items from men at homeless shelters is ALWAYS a good plan.
9. “I’m late for work. But I’m not going to call them. I’m going to show them the receipt and tell them I was having car trouble.” Receipts from Wal-Mart. Your Get Out of Jail Free card for life!
10. “My baby love French fries, hash browns, tater tots, mashed potatoes. She don’t like baked potato. She like peas. Sweet peas. And beans. Whooo. She fart a lot too.”
11. “I give her milk, chocolate milk, juice and tea. She don’t get no soda.”
12. “I like Oprah.” Oprah. Her power extends even to the white trash masses.
13. “I got put in jail once. The police put me in because I threatened to kill myself when I was pregnant. You tell me. My man leaving me for some seventeen year old hooker and I’m all pregnant and stuff. You gonna be upset too.”
14. “My man leaves and I call the police. You better get over here or I’m gonna start cutting. So they locked me up for a week. I take pills now.” Can I have some? Please Shiva can I have some?

It was like staring into a gaping maw of meaningless mundanity. She wasn't really mean or evil or even particularly scammy - except for the fact that she somehow managed to forget her purse and the baby's diaper bag on a trip to Wal-Mart. (Found out later she offered to leave her house key as "collateral" if they'd let her drive home for the money. Uh huh.)

I don't really know how to describe her - other than .... sad. About twenty years old, uneducated, saddled with a child she clearly loves but is in no way prepared to deal with and going nowhere with her life.

Eventually, someone showed up with money. They went back to TLE. I never heard a call for management, so they must have paid and left. Vaya con dios flaming eight-ball pants lady. I hope your baby doesn't grow up to be a Vegas hooker.

20 comments:

Ol' Lady said...

I can't think of any place other than WalMart where you could go on a Saturday morning and get such a learnin of life :o Almost makes me want to get a job at WalMart...just kiddin :)

Unknown said...

That was a very sad picture of this poor girl you painted. She obviously has mental issues. The suck here is that this unfortunate child is stuck with a woman who is clearly unfit to care for her baby. It's obvious she cares, like you said... which is so much more than can be said of a lot of parents these days... but they need help.

Cyndi said...

Wow. Just...wow...

comoprozac said...

I laughed so hard at this one. I even read the quotes with an accent. Good post.

kelmeister said...

I want to know more about the Chucky doll. That's just so random: "It smelled like meat, and didn't look like plastic?" And they got it from a homeless man? It's like, the homeless guy was actually this voodoo priest who lived in the Everglades, and he put a curse on this guy that owed him money: turned him into a doll that he would use for nefarious purposes. The doll would come to life and steal things or kill the homeless guy's enemies. But then he "gave" it to these "people he didn't know" (when actually the poor girl's no-good boyfriend slept with and impregnated the voodoo priest's homeless daughter after a night of drunken debauchery) and the boyfriend figured out the doll was alive and killed it. So now the girl's living with the memory of the weird burning flesh doll smell, and she has no clue what really happened, and everyone thinks she's just a coked-up meth-head, when really she's been touched by Satan.

Awesome.

Anonymous said...

You do know that there are people who don't live monogamous lives like everyone else does, right?

I mean, okay, so maybe this isn't the healthiest situation imaginable, but there are situations in which "letting" your SO sleep with someone else isn't a sign of mental illness or low self esteem.

clarkins said...

She strikes me as the kind of woman you see in pictures on the internet.
They're taking naked, sometimes explicit photos with the kid in the corner. They either don't realize it or don't care.

Letting the man sleep with someone who was under 18 then? What's the age of consent in FL?

Anonymous said...

On one hand, Republicans want to cut all aid to kids like this. On the other hand, they want to make sure they're born. I don't get it.
I think abortion should be free and encouraged, but if the Republicans want to build the schools and daycare and hospitals and roads and clinics and libraries and parks and pools that all these unwanted kids will eventually need, then I'm all for making abortion illegal. You be sure and call me at the ribbon cutting ceremonies and I will give you my voter registration card with a big R on it. Keep in touch.

Unknown said...

That's sad. That she feels so insecure about herself she thinks that letting her man do another woman is going to keep him by her side. That she's got a child when she should be out learning, and having fun, and maybe finding a decent man.

:(

Anonymous said...

Emily-
I think BBC is aware that (HEALTHY) open relationships are not signs of mental illness. It's everything else this young lady was going on about and her behavior in general that is leading to the general consensus that perhaps she needs some psychological help.
This girl obviously had a problem with the fact that she 'let' her man sleep with another woman, and it IS affecting her. I know from experience that too much denial is a bad thing indeed.
Yes healthy open relationships CAN exist. This is not one of them.

Anonymous said...

Fantastically witty post!

OMG...what people feed their babies just REALLY pisses me off! I have two under the age of 1.5 and I've always managed to make sure the oldest, who eats 'real' food, has good, healthy food. NEVER ever a jar of baby crap, not even when I was unexpectedly hospitalized for 5 days when her sister came early.

I sure as hell would NEVER giver her tater tots or french fries, much less chocolate milk, tea and juice! (Juice isn't allowed in my home, one of those 'foods' with too many calories that parents some how have been tricked into believing it's a health food.)

Foods like the ones this lady mentioned (not to mention the fact a child that age is FAR too young to be eating any of that!) are the reason that juvenille diabetes and obesity are on the rise. Absolutely sickening! (I could go on a lot longer rant on this...sorry I went on this long, your blog is fabulous!)

Anonymous said...

Kelmeister:

Exactly (although much more in-depth) what I was thinking.

Unknown said...

PEOPLEKEA!!! LOL, you're awesome :-)

Anonymous said...

I had to go to AcronymFinder.com to learn that TLE stands for Tire Lube Express a la casa de Wal.

Love your postings, but keep in mind that not everyone who reads them is a Walmartian. :-)

Unknown said...

Oh my god, i laughed so hard i wet myself. I love your side comments, they just kill me. Peoplekea did me in, thats when i was really struggling to breath while laughing.

This poor girl is sad, but it isn't the lifestyle that makes it sad, its the fact that she is obviously having trouble dealing with its effects, and while she loves the baby, she is not aware of the child's needs and meeting them.

Just another thought, who figures out that their car battery is dead BEFORE showering, getting dressed, and getting in the car to leave for work? Something just doesn't quite add up there, how did she know it was dead while still in her pjs?

Library Rat said...

And people think I'm crazy to suggest people should have to have a license to procreate...

Anonymous said...

One time I was in Walmart and an Walmart employee followed me around the whole store talking about milk coming out of men's nipples and her laughing at them. I never saw Kelli at the Piscataway, NJ Walmart again... poor thing LOL.

Unknown said...

Oh my effing lord. I absolutely love your blog and your writing style. LOVE it!

Anonymous said...

I guess it could be worse. She could work at Walmart. I mean, how much lower can you get than that?

Anonymous said...

wow i just can't believe it. I must not get out in the world. I've never met someone so f---ed up. Thats not even funny. wait i did we had some neighbors i guess you could call them white trash or is it trailer park trash whatever i'll probably get hassled for both i feel bad using those terms. well anyway this dumb ass dirt white boy freckles the whole f----- stereotype gets a half retarded (probably get hassled for this one too)girlfriend and they have a baby well they have two babies, and CPS takes them away because well they found them dehydrated malnourished the fucking works and these f------ got enough money to buy cartons of cigarettes but don't take care of their own. See when your dirt poor your so busy thinking of yourself (and i say this for some not all because i know some parents who'll give their food to their kids before eating themselves)and feeling sorry for yourself and wallowing in your self pity and in what you don't have and don't focus on what you do have and that is kids and they come first and if you f------ up got some girl pregnant or got pregnant however it may apply. Your life has seriously got to change. people better start doing this themselves cuz you all know how the govt loves to intervene and make a bad situation worse. govt can only do so much the rest is up to parents and society look at the crap on our tv. ahhhhhhh who cares look at me ranting. I'm gonna go now and wallow in my own self pity and self rightesnous (mispelled i know i don't care for now)