Blogger has been the bitchiest sister I never had this week. It's eaten three of my posts. I originally wrote this last weekend. Rawr.
I didn’t leave my new job (which I will write about sometime when I figure out how to do it both safely and respectfully) until almost 8:30 last night, which is 2.5 hours after my usual ending time. I had a few things I wanted to buy and I knew at least one of them would be 10-20 dollars cheaper at Wal-Mart.
Sometimes 10-20 dollars seems like a lot to me, enough so that I try to talk myself into shopping at Wal-Mart to save a buck (I know, I know, Kelly, the Wal-Mart empire is built on the weak shoulders of people like me—except I never give them my money). I am never, ever successful at these attempts to convince myself. Like my mini-Wal-Mart meltdown in October, I just couldn’t do it. When I got inside the store, it was dingy and dimly lit and there were people EVERYWHERE. They were at least 8 deep at the check out lanes. There were hordes just blocking the aisles so no one could pass, largely because the big W insists on putting merchandise in the middle of its otherwise perfectly acceptable aisles. I fought my way through the crowds and finally made it to the item. I was right—it was considerably cheaper, so I tossed it into my cart.
But, just like in October when I attempted to buy a folding table and chairs at Wal-Mart that were fully 35 dollars cheaper than the same merch at Target, I was suddenly overcome with bourgeois guilt and a crisis of conscience. And so, like in October, I put my stuff back on the shelves and walked out having purchased nothing. No Wal-Mart blood on my hands, no sir.
As I approached my car, I noticed a gentleman waiting for passersby across the aisle. Hoping that my car’s beeping as I unlocked the doors from afar would dissuade him from trying to talk to me, I made a beeline. No such luck.
"Excuse me, ma’am?"
"Yes?"
"I’d like to invite you to a revival my church is having," he said and proffered a half-sheet flyer.
"I’m sorry," I said sweetly and with a genuine smile, "I'm not a Christian."*
He looked at me with part pity and part hopeful smile and said, "That’s okay. You can become one!"
At this point, I ducked into my car and though about the millions of ways I could respectfully tell this man that it isn’t that easy. No, it’s not that easy. It can’t be that easy. But I drove away, instead.
*I would like to note that this guy was really nice and in no way creeping me out. I like to think that his demeanor caused me to respond so nicely, since when Lauryn and I were walking to class the other day and someone from the PIRGs approached us and asked if we "didn't have a minute for the environment," we kept walking stridently while I called back, "Not today. We HATE the environment!"
