I Must Be A Devoted Shopper

I was in Walmart this morning, browsing through the selection of plastic storage bins when an alarm started to ring. I, along with other patrons around me, assumed it was the electronics department, or the front door or some other false alarm and so we continued along our merry shopping way. A few moments later, you could hear an announcement over the intercom saying something about "false alarm" - but you couldn't quite tell whether they were saying "This is a false alarm" or "This is not a false alarm", so, again, we continued shopping. As Walmart employees were making their way from the back of the store towards the front, they were telling each shopper, "This is not a false alarm. Please leave your cart where it is and evacuate the store". So I left my cart. And so did every single customer between me and the front door, thus creating a mini-obstacle course made up of half-filled, blue shopping carts. Talk about a pain in the ass!

As we left the store, we were simply ushered across the lane way and in to the handicap parking area. There was one Walmart employee directing the vehicles at the front of the parking lot in an attempt to clear the lane for the fire trucks (whose sirens you could already hear in the distance). The fire trucks zoomed up to the doors where the handsome, brave firefighters jumped out of their truck and rushed in to the Land of Low Low Prices (Everyday!). It was at this time I noticed that among the crowd of shoppers, there was nary a blue vest to be seen. A quick 360 degree scan of the parking lot and my eyes finally rested on the Walmart employees - they were totally off the parking lot WAY over by the Subway in the next block of stores!! I couldn't believe it! They left all the customers standing in front of the store, directly in harm's way! Now, even though I was utterly disgusted, ticked off and ready to tell the manager exactly what I thought of the situation, I realized that the rest of my day hinged upon my purchases - I was buying storage bins to organize our shelves in the laundry room with and that if I left now, my plans would be shot. So, I stood there like a hundred other people and waited for the manager to wave us all back in to the store (after about 30 minutes). Oh, to be under the grip of consumerism...tsk tsk!