Chapter Three: Welcome To Walmart

The first full day she was here, I took her to Walmart like any sensible American would. On a more serious note, Virginie has always been fascinated with Walmart and I could not rob her of that experience due to my own opinions on that dreadful hell-hole.

Before we went to Walmart, we stopped by the dollar store which was walking distance from Walmart. Virginie was quite amused that everything in the store was for $1.It irritated her that we do not include taxes in the original price which is understandable. While we were looking around for items that we needed, I gave her the general rules of shopping at the dollar store. Rule one: Stay away from any products that go in your body or on it. Rule 2: Shit is cheap so don’t expect it to last. Rule 3: Have fun! We picked up a couple reusable water bottles, hair ties, a pack of tissues, and a tote bag. A successful trip to the dollar store and a new experience for Virginie.

With cheap goods in-hand, we were on our way to Walmart but we made a quick pit stop at the nearly extinct Payless Shoe Store. We had to figure out Virginie’s U.S. shoe size because it was inevitable she would be purchasing shoes sometime during this month-long stay. No better place to do that than Payless, plus I had a chance to give her a little bit of an American retail history lesson. Virginie could not believe how cheap the shoes were, this will be a recurring theme throughout her stay. Just about everything seems a bit cheaper in the U.S. compared to France.

Now that Virginie had her shoe size and a little bit of American retail history knowledge, it was finally time for us to enter Hell… I mean Walmart.

We enter Walmart and get greeted by the security hawk-eyeing, everyone. This was the first time I could tell that Virginie was getting a bit overwhelmed. She has heard tales on the internet of how big Walmart is but I don’t think any of them truly prepared her for what she witnessed. Lines with 8+ people waiting in each, clothing racks as far as the eye can see, enough produce to feed a small city, and of course the troves of people.

At this point, I stopped Virginie and asked her exactly what she needed or else we would never escape the grasp of Walmart. She gave me a short list of things and I quickly transformed into a Walmart guide dog, thanks to my many hours trapped in this place. While hunting for the listed items, I would periodically stop and observe Virginie. It was so adorable to watch her gaze at everything with such innocence. I have never seen someone look so amazed at such a dreadful place. She was overwhelmed but it was definitely the good kind of overwhelmed.

We packed our first items in the cart after debating how price tags work here. “Only worry about the yellow tags” I would tell her. After a couple of times of saying that, she was already on her way to becoming a Walmart pro.

Next section that was upon us was the clothes. I should say this before we move on with this entire story. I absolutely loathe shopping for clothes at stores! For some reason, while Virginie was here this all changed. I actually enjoyed shopping for clothes with Virginie and I am fairly certain that is because I get to admire her in the outfits she picks out.

Now, back to the Walmart journey! Remember it is October, so all the Summer attire is dirt cheap. We spent a good hour trifling through sales racks like some kind of Walmart savages. Well to be fair, the minute you step into Walmart some type of savage instinct triggers in everyone. Virginie found a few cute Summer tops but we had to stop because I didn’t want her to blow all her money on the first day, at Walmart nonetheless. There’s more to America than just Walmart.

At this point into our Walmart expedition, we were starting to get a bit tired and Virginie was still fighting nine hours of jetlag. It was time for us to grab some food to last us the week. I could go into great details about the food shopping part but Walmart is already taking up too much of this post. Quite frankly, I feel ill from typing out the word “Walmart” so many times. To put our food part of the journey shortly, it was a lot of new foods she hasn’t seen.

After waiting in line for what seemed like an eternity, it was finally time for us to leave Hell and go home to munch on the frozen pizza we purchased. Virginie received a healthy dosage of American culture shock on her first full day. Nothing screams American more than Walmart, right?

As much as I talk badly about Walmart, Virginie seemed to genuinely enjoy it. In the end that is all that mattered to me. This entire month was her’s and I wanted to just be in her presence. These feelings were very much mutual, we both loved being together.

This day ended much like the last one. We went to bed with our hearts full of love and smiles on our faces.