Showing posts with label Walmart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walmart. Show all posts

That makes me feel WEIRD

Because I'm an introvert, weirdness is an emotion I feel on a daily basis. I remember as a kid thinking that my family was the only normal family in the entire world.  Sleepovers were the worst.  For many years I would call my parents to come and pick me up in the middle of the night.  The car ride home would consist of my repeating the word weird multiple times.  "Mom, they don't watch television after eight o'clock.  Isn't that weird?" or "Her mom makes all the kids drink milk with their dinner.  That is so weird." and "I don't like how loud her family talks.  They are just so weird.  I'm so glad we are normal."  My parents would nod their heads in agreement because deep down they felt the same way.  We all do.  Our own friends and family are the best and most normal people.  End of story.  But it is not just people that make me get that weird feeling, it is also places.  Example #1- Driving through the potato fields of Hastings, at sunset, listening to "Fields of Gold".  Example #2-Walmart on a Friday night.  Need I say more.  Probably not, but I will.  The florescent lights, strangely dressed people, strangely shaped people, barefoot toddlers, and the abundance of yellow smiley faces sends my weirdometer spinning, at which point I have to exit the building.  Example #3- Traveling should be fun.  And it is fun, that is until we drive through one of those dumpy towns that is overflowing with dilapidated motels and a Dairy Queen that has seen its better days.  Towns like that give me the worst weird feeling, like I am about to become part of a scenario similar to that of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."  Movies give me weird feeling too.  Example #4- The movie "Gummo" is the all time make you feel weird movie.  Only watch this movie if you are not easily offended and if you are looking to have that icky weird feeling for a week.  A steamy 45 minute shower won't wash the weird off you after watching this movie.  On a day to day basis, I get my weird feelings from ordinary situations.#5- Awkward silences. #6- When someone near me passes gas, and I don't know the person well enough to make a joke like, "Whoa, someone is bleeding the lines!" #7-Riding in the passenger seat of someone's car that I don't know very well.  #8- Greetings and Salutations (to hug or not to hug?) #9- When someone walks into the room right after I was talking about him or her. And #10- Waving to someone who didn't actually wave at me but waved to the person behind me.
If you would like to have a taste of what makes me feel weird.  Click play.


The Slouching Flower

Matt took it upon himself to start doing the grocery shopping a few years ago.  If I remember correctly, I think it had something to do with me spending waaaaaay too much money each time I did the shopping.  Whatever. Anyways, being the frugal consumer he is, Matt switched from Publix to Walmart in an attempt to save money.  It worked.  In fact, it worked so well that some Sunday mornings when Matt arrives home from Walmart with a trunk full of white Great Value boxes, there is also a fresh bouquet of flowers just for me.  He's a keeper, I know. The bouquet he picked up for me last Sunday was particularly stunning.  It has been 5 days, which is normally the lifespan for most Walmart bouquets, but amazingly my arrangement is still going strong.  That is, all but this one particular flower.  When I walked into the dining room this afternoon, my eyes were immediately drawn to the slouching flower.  Everything about it still seemed so perfect.  Every petal still firmly in place.  The color still vibrant, but yet there it stood, wilted and lifeless, with no hope of returning to an upright position.  I plucked the flower from the vase, quickly snapped a photo, and then tossed it into the garbage can.  The rest of the evening my mind kept going back to the image of that sulky flower, and I think it is because it reminded me of "me."  My adulthood has been plagued with bouts of depression and anxiety, and I often feel exactly how that stupid flower looked today- wilted and lifeless.  So, I guess the point of all this mumbo-jumbo was simply to say-Today I connected with a slouching flower.  I took a picture of it, then threw the flower away.  It reminded me of how I feel when I'm sad.  The End.