If you want to experience the vast expanse of humanity, there’s no better place to go than Walmart. Businessmen in three-piece suits load their carts with copy paper and legal pads, urban cowboys in boots and pearl-snap shirts ask for cartons of Camel cigarettes, and Larry-the-Cable-Guy wannabes check out the hunting section. Women dressed to kill in their designer clothes and diamonds shop the organic vegetables, tired looking Moms with baby food stains on their t-shirts keep one controlling hand on their toddler as they reach up for the Captain Crunch, and the young career women carefully choose their Lean Cuisines. I’ve seen teenagers making out, kids riding down the aisles on bicycles, and people sitting on the floor reading the magazines. Today I saw the oldest woman I’ve ever seen wearing short shorts. It was sad. I’ve seen men on scavenger hunts, desperately trying to find an item on their wives’ grocery list. I’ve seen groups so large blocking the aisle I need to go down that I’m sure a family must have chosen Walmart as the site of their reunion.
But what can be really interesting are the things that you overhear in Walmart. I heard a girl use her cell phone to break up with her boyfriend while she examined bathing suits in the clothing section. I heard a young woman give a friend (and everybody else in line) all the details of her impending divorce while I waited to pick up a prescription. I’ve heard the old men on the benches at the front of the store discuss the weather, and gardening, and who’s passed away lately. Once, I overheard a little girl ask her mother, “Why do we always have to buy the cheap cereal?” but I didn’t wait for the reply. I’ve got three kids. I already know the answer to that one. In the deli one day, a kind-hearted youngster informed her dad as they waited for sliced turkey and Colby Jack cheese: “It’s not nice to kick people. Especially grandma and little babies.”
Writers often get some of their best lines of dialogue and ideas for characters from personal experience and observation. With the advent of Walmart, now we writers can multitask. But use discretion— it could be harmful to your health to whip out your writing notebook and transcribe the phone conversations as they are happening, especially the really interesting ones.
But what can be really interesting are the things that you overhear in Walmart. I heard a girl use her cell phone to break up with her boyfriend while she examined bathing suits in the clothing section. I heard a young woman give a friend (and everybody else in line) all the details of her impending divorce while I waited to pick up a prescription. I’ve heard the old men on the benches at the front of the store discuss the weather, and gardening, and who’s passed away lately. Once, I overheard a little girl ask her mother, “Why do we always have to buy the cheap cereal?” but I didn’t wait for the reply. I’ve got three kids. I already know the answer to that one. In the deli one day, a kind-hearted youngster informed her dad as they waited for sliced turkey and Colby Jack cheese: “It’s not nice to kick people. Especially grandma and little babies.”
Writers often get some of their best lines of dialogue and ideas for characters from personal experience and observation. With the advent of Walmart, now we writers can multitask. But use discretion— it could be harmful to your health to whip out your writing notebook and transcribe the phone conversations as they are happening, especially the really interesting ones.
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