My kids will roll their eyes and feign utmost disgust at Dad's low brow pleasure, but I love to shop at Wal*Mart. Just to pique their contempt, I will spontaneously sing a little ditty based on my shopping list:
Yup! Yup! Yup! I'm goin' to Wal-Mart
Yup! Yup! Yup! I'll be saving money 'cause I'm so smart
I'm going to buy me some beans and some jeans, ha ha ha!
I'm going to buy me some raisins and some rolls!
Yup! Yup! Yup! I'm goin' to Wal*Mart
I just don't know how I raised kids that can justify middle class snobbery. As I remind then, "I am all about value", and they know it. Yup! Yup! Yup!
Saving some money of course has its value, but what the detractors in my family don't really realize is that by driving just 3 miles, I can put myself among the market stalls of exotic cultures, share cart space with people from distant lands and while walking from produce to cereals I can often eaves drop on speakers of Hindi, Arabic, Spanish and Tagalog. While wheeling my goods literally from cosmetics to dairy, I have figuratively navigated from El Salvador to Thailand. Follow me to the kasbah. I have been shopping on a Sunday afternoon, only to be dazzled by several West African women in elaborate dresses and high-style headdresses (it is too simple to call them merely "hats") coming from worship services, I have have seen a scowling Chinese grandmother assiduously picking less-than-perfect grapes off the stems and tossing them before bagging the bunch and I have smiled as I have maneuvered around women with head-covering hijabs wagging their fingers and clicking their tongues in the universal "Mom Language" at whining kids. Shopping at the local Wal-Mart is a trip.
But when it comes time to check out, this is America. My fruit and vegetables are purchased by the pound, I do not buy by the kilo or gram and Bank Card Plastic is a good as the Coin of the Realm. In 6th Grade, we were expected to know US weights and measures; 16 ounces in a pound, 3 feet in a yard, 4 quarts in gallon. At Wal-Mart the hard salami is listed at $4.59 per pound (Per Unit Pricing lists the price at 28.7 Cents per Ounce). As a perverse shopper and graduate of the 6th Grade, I will walk up to the deli counter and ask for 12 ounces of salami. The employee's eyes usually show panic at my request in units of ounces. I had one employee whisper to her manager, "He wants 12 ounces!! Our scales don't measure in ounces!" The manager whispered back, "Just give him half a pound". Despite labeling salami in pounds and ounces, the scales are only digital, requiring the merchant to know how many ounces in a pound. I have had deli workers weigh out 0.62 lbs and ask "Is that close enough?" [clever bluff] Alas, only once has my request been measured accurately. I am not sure if the inability to convert 12/16 of a pound into 0.75 lbs deserves a commentary on the US educational system, arithmetic standards for entry into Middle School or quality of Wal-Mart employees.
Using the metric system may be logically the easiest system, but converting from English to Metric for our citizenry is a non-starter; I think going digital is as far as we can go with our weights and measures without disturbing the domestic tranquility. God Bless America! Yup! Yup! Yup!
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