*%^@(&%

The other day I needed some things for maintenance on my everyday driver, oil, air filter etc. I also needed a couple of things for the house/garage and decided Wallyworld was as good as anyplace else, that and the fact I could possibly find something I absolutely did not need while there.

Now you see I did shop around a little and found that the oil is cheaper at Wallyworld and they stock Fram air filters for my application. With this in mind the common sense of not going to Wallyworld was over ridden by the savings of going to Wallyworld.

You see I have a problem with anyplace that allows you to load Food and Anti-Freeze in the same cart, or have the cornflakes across the aisle from the underwear. That is just wrong.

The point at which my ass was fully within the confines of the entrance to Wallyworld was the point at which the gods aligned themselves in perfect ordered and laughed.

The people that used to be at Wallyworld in the wee hours of the morning are now there in force during the daylight hours. You can tell who these people are by the breakfast buffet of the past week that they wear with pride on their shirt or the worn for 8 days without washing sweat pants that dads got on.
The voices in my head were silent.
On to the Automotive department. There in all it's glory are the things that grip you by the brain and say BUY ME. Funnels of every shape, size, color and length beg me to take them away from here. Oil drain pans fell of the shelf in front of me in adoration of my being and without flinching I moved on to the motor oil.

Now we have a choice of brands of motor oil unparalleled anywhere in the continental United States and Europe. What brand I chose is unimportant but be it known it wasn't the brand called Uncle Clem's otherwise known as the el cheapo house brand.
Finding the air filter I needed with the electronic fish finder they call a catalog was fun but uneventful and on I went to find the items for the garage, when I suddenly realized I needed some ATF for the street rod and probably could find some here.

Gallon jugs of ATF were everywhere, Dextron III,IV,VI/Mercon, ChryslerIII, Type F and Uncle Clem's. I only needed a couple of Quarts and having to guesstimate how much you've poured into the Transmission from a gallon jug is a down right pain in the balls.

Out of the corner of my eye I see a shelf in the corner, a clearance shelf of sorts with stuff thrown helter skelter and paw prints from the last Neanderthal intrusion everywhere. In the middle of the shelf was a neat little row of quart containers, name brand quart containers of the correct type transmission fluid. Under this shelf it was clearly marked with the correct brand abbreviation and ATF/GAL. $5.00. Now I look the shelf all over again to make sure the markings are correct and determine that they are. Being that there isn't a gallon jug within 6 ft of the shelf and this is a bargain I grab 4 quarts and head for the house/garage items and on to the registers.

The gene pool runs shallow in some families, I found one that could be called empty. The look that a dog gives with his ears up and head cocked off sideways doesn't come close to the look I received from the cashier.

Everything was fine until the moment she rang up the ATF at $2.00/Qut. I politely informed her that this was wrong and she needed a price verification. She again attempted to ring it thru at the same price and I again informed her that was incorrect. Now the cashier's have system of notifying the supervisor when they have a problem and evidently the human like substance that I was stuck with couldn't figure out how to turn on the blinking light and left to find a supervisor, at which point I directed all the poor lost souls behind me onto the next bus to Hell and waited.

After explaining to the supervisor where I had found it and what was stated on the tag below the ATF off she goes to the Automotive Dept. for a price verification. Perhaps these people had never heard of cellular communications, intercoms, walkie talkies or smoke signals.

The voices in my head were calling for blood, my blood.

After filling the seats several times over for the eternal bus trip to Hell the Supervisor finally returned with a store security person, to inform me that the label/ price tag clearly stated that it was ATF/GAL. $5.00.

This time the voices in my head fell silent for just a moment, then calmly stated in a soothing almost sensual tone,"the jail time would be worth it".