Running in Walmart Gear

I never imagined it would happen. Imagine what would happen? First, that I would forget my running shorts, and second, that I would find something at Walmart that I could run in. Let me tell you what happened.

Kedra and I arrived late Sunday night at her parent’s home in Huntsville, Alabama. While Kedra and her parents were catching up, I slipped away to the bedroom to prepare for an early morning run. I got out my shoes, socks, and hat, not necessarily in that order. I just pulled out the pieces as they came. Where were my shorts?

I was sure that I packed them. A thorough search, followed by two more, including dumping everything on the bed and putting it back in the suit case, piece by piece, revealed that I was wrong. Now what?

Well, I have my bike here, which means I have bike shorts. The bike shorts I brought, however, were the ones with a thick pad built it, so, if I ran in them, I would look like I was wearing a diaper under my skin tight shorts or I should have been. Either way I didn’t think venturing out in Alabama like that was a good idea.

It’s fairly late on a Sunday night in Huntsville. Dick’s Sporting Goods is closed, the malls are closed, Target (which has some decent running stuff) is closed. What’s open? Walmart.

Walmart? It was the only option, I’m telling you! So off to Walmart I go. I’ve never seen it so empty, which allowed me to quickly make my way to the men’s section. "There’s no way I will find shorts with a moisture removing liner built in," so I’m thinking of how to handle that situation. Non-runners, just skip your thoughts here; don’t ask and don’t worry about it. Really, just move along.

The first thing I notice is that almost all the shorts are very ugly and very large. Hmmm. Lots of XXXXXXXLs down to XLs. Then a pleasant surprise: they have compression shorts made of good moisture removing material! And I found a Medium (referring to size, not a psychic). One problem is now solved, and any shorts would basically be OK on top of these little beauts, which were only $12.

I kept searching and searching through the shorts, and I finally found one pair of small gray shorts that were not too ugly and, amazingly, seemed to be large for a small. It was late, so I would have to make do. Time to check out. There was one checkout line open on the non-food side, which was a long, long way from the food checkouts, which were backed up with large people getting Sunday night snacks. I guess that’s what they were doing?

The one line open on my side of the store was a "10 items or less" line. But when I arrived there was a young couple there, not nicely dressed, not classified as "beautiful people." They had a cart ("buggy" in southern speak) with at least 500 items in it. There were unloading, and the "big-boned" checkout woman was not very happy about anything. I was probably engaged in psychological projection at this point. She was actually expressionless. A Stoic perhaps?

The couple talked to each other in Alabama redneck language. I am actually an interpreter of this language, but I could not quite hear them. All I know is that he actually left to go get more stuff, while the big-boned woman looked on stoically. I allow my breathing to become audible. Hey, I wanted them to know that I was still alive, just in case they were wondering.

The guy came back, and everything stopped. No "boop" of an item across the scanner. The big-boned woman looked at the young man and then at the pile of stuff collected on the bag carousel. Clearly she is sending a message.

He picks up her signal! He, quite friendly and eager to please, says to her, "Oops, not doing my job!" He grabs some of the bags and other stuff and get things moving again. The man’s girlfriend, not very friendly and not eager to please, mutters, "I don’t think it’s your job," slinging her words at the big-boned woman, now booping again. Boop. Boop.

Finally the 90 something dollar total is announced, and now comes the question about funding. I turned away, fearing the worst. A few cards, a few swipes, nervous laughter from the friendly man, and my fears were. . . relieved. They were finished!

I stepped up to the big-boned booper. We exchanged a few emotionless words, words of a good, solid transaction. She looked at the compression shorts, tiny and tight, and said nothing. I looked away, looked back to pay, and then walked away. My running had taken me places I did not want to go.

I felt her stare as I left.  I turned and said, "Boop, boop, baby. Now, you can stop checking me out!"