Our Walmart Life - Trippin in the Air Freshener Aisle
Written by Ken Hulsey
Over the past several months, I've begun to realize that our local Walmart has become a true second home to my wife and me. Hardly a day goes by when I don't find myself popping in to pick up something. In fact, I often find myself popping into Walmart for reasons other than shopping. With the heat and humidity so extreme here in the South, I have actually gone to Walmart to take a walk for some exercise. There I am walking around the store in a pattern, passing the pharmacy, then the hardware department, then electronics. You get the idea. Anyone who may have observed my actions might have thought I was out of my mind, but as anyone who has ever set foot in a Walmart knows, my behavior was not the craziest thing going on in that store at the time.
I have also discovered that shopping at Walmart has begun to center around a set of unique rituals. For example, my wife and I generally spend a good block of time in the air freshener aisle. The amount of freshly smelling products at Walmart is actually quite extensive. There are several different brands, and each has its own catchy names like Fresh Linen, Mediterranean Lavender, Hawaiian Breeze, Crisp Morning Sky, and Sunst Beach. Of Course, all of these, which are supposed to be based on exotic locations, smell more like what we would like them to smell like instead of what they actually smell like. I've been to the beach at sunset, and it doesn't smell like vanilla; then again, who wants their house to smell like salt water, sun tan lotion, stale campfires, and seagull excrement? I honestly think that most of them smell like my grandmother's bathroom. The woman loved lavender.
Here is where the ritual begins. We both have scents that we really like, but for some reason we can never remember what they are when we get there. Of course, we never write down the names either. So here we go. My wife selects a can with a name that sounds familiar, shakes the can, sprays a mist of sweet-smelling vapor into the air, and sniffs it. Likewise, I repeat the ritual with another can. We swap cans and repeat. We both make a funny face, put the cans back, and select two new cans of air freshener. The ritual begins again, always the same process. We do this for quite some time. After a few samples, our olfactory senses have been completely overloaded, and everything smells the same or doesn't smell at all. Yet we continue. Eventually, we get so high on the fumes that we don't care which ones we choose. With our eyes swirling and our minds swimming in Crisp Morning Sky, we pluck the first two cans we sampled off the shelf and drop them in our basket.
We are now in no shape to continue shopping, but we wander on into the aisles of food to get the items that we came into the store for in the first place. Being in the impaired state that we are, we generally end up buying bags of chips and cookies instead of the bread, cheese, and milk that we needed. It's kind of like Cheech and Chong shopping at the Safeway. Anyway, not getting the stuff we need gives me an excuse to go back to Walmart later. After all, it is my home away from home anyway.
If we are being honest, maybe this Air Freshener Ritual is the sign of some underlying issue. Maybe we need to ask ourselves: do we WANT the air fresheners, or do we NEED the air fresheners? I have found myself sniffing the scented candles for no good reason lately. Maybe we will need some sort of rehab or 12-step program. If you see me wander into a Bath and Body Works that isn't on my way home from work, take the time to stop me. Organize some sort of intervention if you see me smelling stuff randomly in Hobby Lobby or just smelling the onions at the market. There is no shame in admitting that you have a problem. I don't, of course, but I worry about my wife.
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