Let me first say, we all had a bit of "culture shock" when we moved into the new house and that entailed "changing Wal-marts" ... along with everything else! We are further from "our Wal-mart" and have to use the one around the corner simply because of convenience (and the rising cost of gas)! Man, do we miss ours though! They are like two completely differently store chains! Craziness!! We could walk into our old Wal-mart and make a game out of how many people we would see that we knew. We would place our "bets" before going in and had fun searching while inside to meet our guesses ... or we'd do our best to avoid people to be right! : ) We have yet to get to that point at the new Wal-mart ... give us some time.
If you are unaware, Wal-mart has everything under the sun (except our new one ... the variety isn't as good as our old one ... no fabric, limited scrapbooking materials, etc). Nevertheless, you can usually find everything you need there ... it being the one-stop shop! Clothes, food, crafts, car parts ... you name it! The clearance aisle is one of my favorite aisles in the store! You can find some great bargains there on occasion. But, nothing beats our most recent Random Act of Kindness received through a Wal-mart employee.
When my cousin, Sgt Sam Kelsey was killed last month, I made his mom a memory photo and wanted it to look better than my printer would put out, so I sent it to Wal-mart via the one hour photo lab online. My parents were headed up there and were going to pick it up. When my mom gave her name, the photo department cashier couldn't find her picture. Another cashier happened in and asked the name. She knew exactly where the picture was ... she had put it up in waiting. She gave the photo to my mom ... and with a tear in her eye she simply said, "No charge. We are grateful for his service." My mom took the picture, holding back her own tears, and quietly nodded with a polite, "Thank you." That lady had no idea the impression she left on me and my family that day! To her ... Thank you!
But, I believe the most precious "find" at our Wal-mart was, in some sort of way, a true friendship. It seemed that every time we ran into an old friend of mine from high school, and his family, was at our old Wal-mart. One time it was the local Target ... but it was at least 2 or 3 times a year at Wal-mart. We watched each other's kids grow up ... in the aisles of this store. We always exchanged/updated information ... cells numbers, emails, etc ... but we would always just wait until the next chance meeting at Wal-mart to speak again. Subsequently, when we began going to our new church ... we were pleased to learn that my friend and his family also attended there! Hence, we no longer needed to search the aisles of Wal-mart to continue our friendship with them ... we are able to fellowship with them weekly in God's house!
Gas: firstborn
Milk: an arm and a leg
Friendships: PRICELESS
