At our monthly Writing is Fun meetings we decide a prompt for writing for the next meeting. Length is set at 2 pages so we can read them at the meeting. There is quite a diversity of writing. Some are real life recollections, some fictional vignettes, and sometimes there's a poem.
Adventures in Walmart – Carol Kagan
November 3, 2022
Ruth Ann just started the night shift after years of having a regular work week. On Thursdays, after her shift was over at 4 she headed to Walmart for the weekly grocery shopping. Now it was midnight as she made her way through the quiet halls, past dark rooms and the occasional whirring of a floor waxer coming from nearby.
She found a parking space near the door, and made sure she had her list, coupons in her purse and cloth shopping bags. Into the bright lights and through the door. Ruth Ann was hit by the intense odor of floor cleaner, stopped quickly, and looked around. Several feet in front of her was the ubiquitous yellow plastic tent sign – Caution wet floor - Cuidado Suelo Mojado – with the little stick figure slipping silently.
There were hardly any customers but there were workers, wrapped in white, bobbing up and down from cartons to shelves, stocking items. There was a familiar beeping of a forklift in reverse coming from the far back area as she turned and headed past too many choices of yogurt and variations of orange juice.
A young guy was pulling milk jugs from the shelf and putting them on the floor. He grabbed other ones from the pallet on the forklift and shoved them to the back of the shelf then replaced the others in the front of them. The forklift left and he continued down the shelves, shuffling items from front to back.
In the canned goods section, she wheeled around a small roadblock of a worker placing bright red jars of tomato sauce on the top shelf. Ruth Ann chose a box of angel hair pasta and checked out the sauces. The top shelf held the more expensive, special recipes. The store brand was within easy reach but there were so many choices. She laughed to herself as she thought about when she was a little girl and sent to the local grocery for spaghetti sauce. She didn’t even have to think about what to get as there was only one brand.
Ruth Ann wheeled the rattling, squeaking cart around the stockers and through the aisles, picking items and putting them in her cart. As she approached the meat section she could smell the fish at the seafood counter even though there were few of them in the case. Only one person was minding the deli counter but was much more pleasant than any of the team there during the day.
The odor of wet cardboard wafted through the produce section from cartons of damp lettuce and cabbage. But over in the fruit section the green and red apples smelled sweet.
Ruth Ann was trying to decide which apples to get for pie when the clerk stacking bananas surprised her and said “Hi, how are you.”
“Fine. Just looking for a good combination of apples for pie.”
“Where are you now?”
“Maybe Granny Smith for tart and Fuji for sweet.”
“Hold on for a minute,” the clerk said.
Ruth Ann looked up at him staring at her, holding a cell phone in his hand.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone. Can I help you with anything?”
They both smiled and she said “No.”
In addition to quite a few self-serve checkouts, there was one cashier at the register, looking bored with no one waiting. She headed to the register.
“So, slow night, Jolene,” she asked after checking out the cashier’s name tag.
“Always is. Did you find everything you wanted?” she replied as she started to slide items past the scanner.
“I did.”
And so ended Ruth Ann’s nighttime adventure at Walmart.
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