Just shut up and unload the cart.

So I went to Wal-Mart today, which is always a chore. I hate that store so much, that when I walk through the door I start to feel all jittery and weird and angry at everyone around me, sort of the way I imagine David Berkowitz felt the first time his dog talked to him. It's a place that makes people look at each other with expressions of mounting malice, all "get out of my way, get OUT of my way right NOW, I need the TOOTHPASTE!" It's a place where there is much darkness and wailing and gnashing of teeth, is what I'm saying. So I've been taking my iPod with me and drowning everything out with Billy Joel and Mel Carter and The Frames, and I've been making a concerted effort to politely allow people in front of me and set an example of what behavior in a civilized society should be. I'm quite proud of myself, to be honest.

So today I was approaching the registers with a cart so over-laden I looked like I was shopping to stock up an early-Cold-War era bomb shelter, despite the fact that I had gone in there looking only for waffles and Brita filters, because goodness knows you can't get out of Wal-Mart without spending the equivalent of the gross domestic product of Equatorial Guinea, when I was cut off by a man with a cart even more over-laden than mine. I had spotted a register with only one person in line, an amazing find in this valley of darkness, and I headed right for it, only to be cut off by this man apparently doing an impression of a New Jersey driver on the Turnpike. I remembered that we're living in a civilized society and I listened to Billy reminding me that "it's all about soul" and I filed in behind him with a patient smile. I was quite proud of myself, to be honest.

Then he turned around and looked at the woman who had filed in behind me, also with an over-laden cart, and indicated that she was his wife. They seemed nice and the fact that they had two carts piled high made me imagine that they had 18 children or possibly lived in a commune and had been given the task of shopping for the members that week. I then (I was really proud of myself this time) offered to let the woman go in front of me with her husband, and he smiled and said, "No, no, we have two carts. You go first." Can you imagine? A font of civilized behavior springing up in the middle of aisle 7 in a Wal-Mart? I graciously accepted his offer and quickly loaded my purchases onto the conveyor belt, trying to be quick so as to incommode these nice people as little as possible. I smiled to myself and made a mental note to thank them again just before I left. That's when it all began to unravel.

The man in front of us, who had been the only one in the line, was purchasing some camel throw blankets and he was insisting they were on sale, despite the fact that they weren't ringing up that way. I might have known the momentum of the line would come to a screeching halt as soon as I entered it. I am a curse to lines. I get it from my father.

The cashier put her light on. No one came. The cashier called the blanket department. No one answered. We stood there. Other lines moved. Ours did not. I felt bad that I was holding these people up with my line curse. The cashier left to go to the blanket department herself. The woman behind me sighed audibly. We stood some more. The man with the camel throws tried to get my opinion on which his mother would prefer: People or The National Enquirer. I gave him a look that was meant to convey that I don't read trashy magazines and that I saw through his "mother" ruse and knew he was buying them for himself. He put them back and bought an US Weekly. I remembered that I was setting an example for civility and smiled at the man with the US Weekly in apology for judging him for reading tabloids.

The woman behind me decided to move to the line next to ours. The cashier finally returned, not having found anyone from the blanket department. She finished the man's order and just as I was reminding myself to thank the people behind me once my merch was rung up, I heard the following exchange:

Woman: I'll go in this line and you stay in that one and one of us will move faster.
Man: Just stay in this line. If this one moves and you get in that one, we'll be split up.
Woman: Oh, Bob, JUST SHUT UP, WILL YOU!
Man: JUST STOP BEING A [BLEEP] JERK!
Woman: YES THAT'S RIGHT BOB. I'm the JERK!
Man: Why do you have to be SO DIFFICULT ALL THE TIME?
Woman: Just SHUT UP and unload the CART!

(The caps are meant to indicate screaming at a volume easily heard in the Electronics Department.)

The cashier just kept her head down and furiously concentrated on ringing up items. An awkward silence fell over the crowd around us. And of course I'm thinking, "Oh holy crap, please don't let them be armed and please don't let this woman go off on me because her husband let me in front of him and please don't let her find out about my line curse." They were standing 8 inches away and I was too afraid to turn around and look at them. A parting smile and a thank you were now out of the question. I paid for my stuff and ran. It may have been my imagination, but I could swear I heard the sound of a bag of frozen peas being thrown at someone's head as I made my hasty exit.

And this only proves something which I have always suspected. Wal-Mart makes people despise each other. Friends, strangers, husbands and wives. It matters not. Walk through those sliding doors and you're gonna want to kill each other. And everyone else around you.

They don't have a gun department, do they?