It's Saturday - Wal Mart needs us

It all started with our first baby.

We did the new-parent thing and attended classes to learn how to breathe properly and plump a pillow. Two nurses from the ob-gyn office led the training, and they were as different as night and day.

In their examples of being prepared for the onset of labor while out and about, one always placed the location at Westlake’s and the other placed the location at Wal Mart.

This was back in the dark ages when there were no Super Wal Marts in our part of the country, and Westlake’s was the upscale store in town. Not wanting to take sides, my wife and I split our time between the two businesses.

One day we went out to Westlake’s to pick up a can of spray paint. Westlake’s makes it easy to get whatever you want, laying out the store with excellent signage and a wide variety of products. We found so many things that we had just put off picking up, that when we checked out our bill came to just over $100.

Now we were newlyweds. We had never, ever spent $100 in one place in our lives as a couple. We really needed that trash can, though. And that clock was essential to fill that blank spot in the kitchen. All necessary, all required to maintain our frugal existence. So we took a deep gulp and paid for it all.

I mention this because that $100 has become a magic number in our household. Ironically, it is now associated not with Westlake’s, but with Wal Mart.

As we had our children and continued to build a home, rooms and cupboards and refrigerators had to be filled again and again. Wal Mart became our destination of choice as it was conveniently located and the prices were low. We couldn’t help but notice that nearly every time we went to Wal Mart, the total ended up being at least $100. That astronomical sum that shocked us at Westlake’s was now the norm. It became a standing joke that if we didn’t break $100, it didn’t seem like we had really been to Wal Mart.

Last weekend my wife and I prepared for our weekly pilgrimage to the Super Wal Mart so that the hungry residents in our house wouldn’t starve over the next seven days. My youngest daughter, now twenty-four, looked up from the computer and asked “Where are you guys going?”

I looked at her without breaking a smile and replied, “It’s Saturday. Wal Mart needs us.”

She understood. She’s family.