Saturday isn't the best time to visit walmart, but if you're early enough things aren't too bad. The lines aren't all that long, and the really low rent denizens haven't yet arrived. There are still, as always, a few of the walmartians about. Our list was short; bread, milk, meat, cheese, coffee. Necessities, so our attendance was manditory, regardless.

There are youtube video collections of images of the more outragious wal*martians: the trashy, the flashy, the sexy, and the weirdly dressed obese. I had an opportunity to add to my collection, but had forgotten my phone. This could be a problem, shopping with my wife. Generally, for every ten minutes shopping, I spend twenty five searching for her! She "sees something shiny" and wanders off the path. Sometimes the phone is the only way to find her!

"OK. The list is complete," she said, " I want to find some tapioca, and then visit toiletries. I'll go down this aisle, but I thought I saw some over there. You look."

Over there was a sales item island in the main passageway. The main theme was cake mixes, but there were frosting and cupcake papers, and a hundred other associated items. When I gave up on the search, she was gone.

Over the next hour, I visited the pudding section, and the toiletry area, each half a dozen times. I checked the lines at the registers each time by. I called out at both restrooms. I went through the checkout line once, and carried a bag out to the truck. I'd made the trip out to the truck once before, and twice after my purchase.

"Where the Hell have you been for the last hour? Why is your ass never where you say it's going to be?" I'd had time to get thoroughly pissed. Same old arguement. Same song, different verse. "Why do I even ask, when I know you'll lie to me?"

"I saw the fabric section as I passed. I found a color combination that might work when we repaint the kitchen. Then I went looking to match paint samples. I lost track of the time, but it was nowhere near an hour!

"Bullshit! You said you'd go from the left-front of the store to the right front. I walked that a dozen times. There is no way it takes you by fabrics in the right rear."

Her tears started, and conversation stopped. We checked out and loaded the truck in silence. I had time to think, as the stoned, the feeble, and the infirm passed in the crosswalk. My mind churned. Toiletries is in the right front, the full length of the store from fabrics. Fabrics near automotive. Automotive service area. The automotive service desk. The automotive service writer. Brad Morris. Bad Brad the well hung lad!

Brad was a high school legend. Tall and handsome, athletic and rich. He was the nightmare of every guy with a pretty girlfriend. Even as a freshman he bedded droves of senior girls stepping out on their boyfriends. He had charm and charisma, money, a big cock and a corvette. We all knew we couldn't compete.

Ten years later he was back in town, and a member of our church. He'd flunked out of several colleges, and pissed away a good chunk of his dad's money. I didn't hear much gossip about him. Had he settled down, or were soccer moms just more discrete?