The Walmart Experience

So, we had a fun day at Walmart yesterday.  And by "fun" I mean I'm bouncing between livid & a Twilight Zone version of "OMG! Did that just happen?"  As I said, part of me is pretty damn irritated.  Part of me is totally creeped out and part of me is giggling over the experience.

So, what happened...

We were having a girls day out yesterday.  "We" being myself, my friend, my daughter & my friend's daughter.  We'd shopped a while, had lunch & ended up in Walmart because the girls wanted to look at makeup & us grownups needed a few groceries.  We entered the store, the girls went one way & us grownups went the other way.  Eventually the kids texted to say they were bored, lets meet and check out.

After checking out, as we were leaving the store, we were stopped by a man in baggy pants & a sweatshirt, not a Walmart uniform.  He wasn't wearing a name tag but he had one in his hand.  (Alex.  Alex from Walmart.  And since I had just learned about the Alex from Target phenomenon a few days before, it turned on my giggle switch.)  He mumbled something & at first I thought he was asking us to complete a survey or something.  Then it became clear that he was asking if the girls were our kids.  Next we were told we had to follow him to the office because the girls had done ...mumble, mumble, mumble something we couldn't understand.

What it all boiled down to was that Alex from Walmart had seen the girls pick up an item off the discount aisle & when he saw them a few aisles later, they didn't have the item in their hands anymore.  Therefore, they must have stolen it.  The girls explained that yes, they'd picked up the item then decided against buying it & put it back.  Alex from Walmart again mumbles his story about how the girls must have stolen it.  The girls gave their story.  Alex repeated his mumble, the girls repeated their story.  On & on this went.  Eventually my friend insisted on either speaking to the store manager or a police officer.  Conveniently for Alex from Walmart, neither was available.  Finally, he allowed us to leave with a mumbled, "we'll have to take your word for it."  No apology.  No understanding at all that someone might change their mind about buying something.  Not to mention this guy had apparently followed our girls around the store for almost an hour.  That just creeps me out.  And it upsets me that we were made to follow this guy, who wasn't wearing a uniform or a name tag into an out of the way office.

So, okay.  I realize that shoplifting is a problem, specially this time a year.  I realize that perhaps Walmart has under-cover employees looking for shoplifters.  I get that.  I even understand that they want to do their investigating in a back office out of the public's eye.  But I really do not appreciate being detained for more than 20 minutes because someone picked up an item then decided not to buy it.  Alex from Walmart did not see the girls shoplift.  Alex from Walmart was not wearing a name tag or uniform yet he expected  us to follow him into an out of the way office.  Alex from Walmart was not interested in looking to see if the girls had put the item back as they said.  Alex from Walmart didn't even seem interested in searching our girls.  In fact, I'm the one who did that and nope, no stolen merchandise.  Alex from Walmart didn't even seem to have a solution to the problem.  He just wanted to accuse us.  Repeatedly.

Anyway, the whole experience has left me ranting about Walmart.  Again.  I'm upset that the girls were accused of shoplifting simply because they chose not to buy an item & put it back.  I'm upset that Alex from Walmart apparently followed our girls around the store for quite a while without them noticing.  I'm upset with myself for following Alex from Walmart into that back office without fully understanding what he kept mumbling about.  I'm upset that there was no apology for accusing our girls for something they didn't do.  I'm upset that my daughter feels I don't trust her because I looked in her purse to make sure she didn't have the item in question.

 I have boycotted Christmas shopping at Walmart before & I am prepared to do it again.

So now, I'm off to calm myself down with some knitting.  And tease my daughter about going from jailbait to jailbird over night.

What am I knitting you ask?

The Flying Monkeys cowl is finished & has already been worn, thus the stray hair hanging off it.  Why is it that those stray hairs are never seen until you are about to publish the picture?

This is the new project but it's a secret so I won't be going into a lot of detail, not before Christmas at least.  Can you guess what it's going to be?

...

Edited for thankfulness.

Thinking about Walmart got me so worked up I forgot to be thankful.  And honestly, I'm so upset over the whole Walmart experience that I can't think thankful thoughts at the moment.  About all I can think of to be thankful for is that my daughter & I have the type of relationship where she can tell me, in a calm nontypical teen tantrum manner that I hurt her feelings for not totally trusting her & even considering that what Alex from Walmart accused her of might be true.  I hope she understands that my actions did not imply distrust, they were simply a bad reaction to a surreal, WTF moment.

11-18-14 knitting update

Wow, this whole blogging every day for the month of November thing is starting to wear on me.  As mouthy as I am, I just don't have that much to say.  While I do knit as much as possible each & every day, there isn't always enough progress made on a project to bother photographing it.  And since I knit as much as humanly possible each & every day, my house is a disaster so you don't want to see pictures of what I'm cooking.  Besides, I'm not cooking, I'm knitting.

So, yes, I'm making progress on the Flying Monkeys cowl but not enough to bother photographing.  So far, it's about 5 inches tall and looks like it's measuring 22 inches in circumference.  A far cry from the intended 28 inches but considering I didn't do any kind of gauge swatching & had never knit with this yarn before, I just for no reason decided I'd get two stitches less per inch than the yarn's band said I'd get and, the knitted fabric is a ribbed pattern and VERY stretchy.... I'm happy with it.  Besides, 28 inches may have been too loose around the neck for this stitch pattern AND, since the cowl won't be as big around, I may have enough yarn to knit a pair of fingerless mitts to match.  Now, that's exciting!

But back to blogging every day in November.  The reason behind blogging every day is to state what I'm thankful for each day.  Besides being thankful that the month is quickly coming to an end & I can stop posting every day, and besides being thankful that it did stop raining before we had to leave for drivers' ed last night, I am quite thankful for all my Facebook followers.  To show my appreciation, there's a coupon code there for 25% off your entire purchase from my Etsy shop, Jeannie Gray Knits.  So, if you've already Liked my Facebook page, thank you!  It means the world to me.  If you haven't, go check it out here to get the coupon.

Meanwhile, I'm going back to crazed Flying Monkey knitting.  It would be so much fun to finish the cowl today & be able to wear it tomorrow.

The monkeys are flying

I'm proud to say that the hen socks are no longer on the needles & have been moved into the FO category   Yay!  As in completely finished!  The toes are even kitchnered!  Double yay!  And while I was kitchnering the hen socks, I kitchnered the Christmas socks as well.

Remember them?  I barely do.  I finished the knitting part sometime in late spring or early summer & they have been sitting in my in-box ever since waiting to have the toes woven shut.  Well, I can check that task off my to-do list now.  Triple yay!

I had a slight moment of crisis trying to decide what to knit next.  There's the Christmas gift knitting list that needs attention, there's the urge to knit another pi shawl, and there was the Flying Monkeys Revenge sitting there screaming, "Knit me, knit me!"

The flying monkeys won.  I mean really, I have 36 days to work on the Christmas gift knitting list.  No need to panic on that yet.  Right?  Please, tell me I'm right.  Please, oh  please tell me I'm right because suddenly, my skin is starting to get that iggly,  twitchy, "you've totally screwed up" feeling.

Crud.  Double crud.

Oh who cares.  Friends & family don't really need hand knit Christmas gifts this year, do they?  Besides, I am LOVING the flying monkeys.  I had no idea what I was going to do with the yarn.  Even as I loaded it onto the swift, I had no particular pattern or even item in mind for it.  The bright neon shades of green & yellow in it are so not me I thought I'd probably make socks that could be hidden under pant legs & inside shoes but as sometimes happens, the yarn chose it's own outcome.  Honestly, I don't even remember making the decision.  One minute, the yarn was half on the swift, half on the ball winder.  The next minute, I was casting on stitches.  My notes about the project simply say, "screw gauge - if 6 st. = 1 inch, 6 x 28 inches = 168 ... doesn't look big enough. CO 180."  From there, I'd scribbled down the same stitch pattern I'd used for the Christmas socks.

It's a little bit scary when the yarn takes over like that but when it does take over, it always knows what it wants.  Flying Monkeys Revenge wanted to be a cowl.  In a spiral rib pattern.  I absolutely loved the way the color sequence stacked up on the Christmas socks.  They ended up looking like entrelac.  Flying Monkeys is not stacking up like that at all but I like the way it is stacking.  The stripes of color are spiraling in the opposite direction from the rib spirals.  It's sort of a big giant mess, like what flying monkeys caught in a tornado would look like.  It's perfect!  Absolutely perfect!  I'm even liking the neon lime green & yellow.

Now to be thankful....  Of course I'm thankful that Flying Moneys Revenge spoke up, quite loudly I might add, and demanded to be a spiral ribbed cowl.  It's going to be perfect.  I'm also quite thankful for a cold rainy day.  I actually love an occasional cold, rainy day.  It's perfect knitting weather.  Now, if it will just stop raining before tonight.  The temperatures are supposed to drop into the 20's and my daughter will be going to drivers' ed.  I'm not sure even flying monkeys can calm my nerves enough to allow my kid to learn to drive in a freezing rain storm.  If it stops raining before 7 p.m., I'll be extra thankful.