wal-mart

The WalMart Experience

First off, you have to understand that I consider Wal-Mart to be the devil one of the leading causes to the downfall of our economy. With that said, my friends, Alex and Jennifer, and I were in the car on the way to Austin, TX (for Maker Faire) when Jennifer remembered that she forgot their toiletries. Alex got flustered about not having his Toni&Guy hair gel and Jennifer politely apologized. I figure it's nothing to get terribly upset about. But then Alex pulled out their "tom-tom" (which is a cool little GPS device) and searched for a CVS pharmacy nearby the house we were staying in. When we finally reached our exit off the interstate I offered to just go to Wal-Mart since it's right there and we knew it would be open anyways.

So we go in and I can't believe I'm actually in the dreaded place. With it's larger than life size and prices so low you hardly believe your eyes. I proceed to use the restroom. Don't wash my hands. Pick up some anti-bacterial hand wipes. Then head to the check out line.

Here's where the whole experience happened.

As I'm standing in line this Indian man approaches me from behind. I just assume he wants to check out, but he's standing unusually close to me. As I turn to see what it's all about he ask me if I'm a student here. "No" I replied. (For whatever reason I lied to him.) And he says "Oh, so where do you work?" I told him I work for a company in Dallas and that I like my job. All the while he has this sort of nervous habit of shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He smiles a lot too.  When I finally asked what he does, he told me "Do you know amazon.com?" "Yeah" I replied. "Well I have a web company similar to that" he says. I said that's cool. And then he was saying how I must enjoy my job a lot making six figures and all. I told him I don't make that much, but I'm still happy with my pay.

He never comes out and says what he wants from me. He never asks if I want more information about his business. He never offers me a business card. Nothing. All I got from him was random questions about what I did for a living and a seemingly friendly conversation. In the end I walked away not knowing very much about my encounter with the Indian guy from Virginia.

-stay creative-