Category Archives: Family

There are really only two things you can count on in this world.

1. There will always be a line at Starbucks.
2. Everything changes (except there always being a line at Starbucks).

Yes, change truly is the one constant in this world. Time marches on and on, dragging with it decay and dust and the dying careers of B-list actors.

But there is one place, one magical place, where time has stood still. A place that, just like the great white shark, has never had to evolve. Someday the pyramids will fall and nature will reclaim our concrete cities and the voodoo spell currently keeping Keith Richards alive will end. Yet, this magical place will still be standing, its murky fluorescent lights still flickering and buzzing, beckoning us in away from the cold, cruel hands of a relentless Father Time.

This magical place I’m talking about, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, is Kmart.

Oh yes. Kmart. That retail giant we all grew up with and that provided generations of children with the embarrassingly hideous clothes that were required on school picture day. Much to my surprise, and possibly yours, these magical places still exist today. And magical they are, kids. Because you can walk into any Kmart anywhere in the world and it is perpetually 1983 in there.

I know this because I’ve gotten on pretty intimate terms with the Kmart store that is within walking distance of my house ever since I had a baby. See, babies are a unique creature that are always requiring things. And not just any things. Things they need RIGHT NOW. Things like diapers and wipes and milk and a right shoe because they somehow lost their right shoe and only their right shoe but since none of their other shoes currently fit because they just had a growth spurt 15 minutes ago, they require a whole new pair.

So, like every other exhausted parent, I spend half my life in whatever the closest store is to buy my kid all the stupid crap they require on a constant basis.

Time moves at a different pace inside Kmart. You walk in from the blinding summer sunlight through those doors to pick up some infant Tylenol and processed cheese and when you walk back out, suddenly it’s dusk.

In the middle of winter.

Three years from now.

This is mainly because Kmart is built like a labyrinth where nothing is where it logically should be, but also because this never-ending maze is littered with all kinds of booby traps, like unsupervised feral toddlers and abandoned carts piled high with men’s khaki pants blocking pathways.

This time vortex pulls you even deeper in once you finally make it to the checkout. Because of the three lanes open (and there will always only be three lanes open, ALWAYS, unless there are only two lanes open), no matter which one you choose, you will end up behind the person who has to, for some unfathomable reason, purchase her giant pile of stuff using two separate transactions. (And don’t even THINK of switching lanes because if you do you will inevitably end up behind someone worse…like someone who needs a price check AND has coupons AND answers a phone call from her sister, who she’s fighting with, mid-transaction).

Now why this aforementioned person needs to purchase the shampoo and out-of-season Christmas sweater with cash and the candles, coloring books, dust buster and crock pot with a credit card is a mystery that not even Nancy Drew partnered up with the Hardy Boys can figure out. And yet, it happens.

Every.

Single.

Time.

But time is not the only magical thing about Kmart.

Take, for instance, how every single cashier that works in the store is magically only on their third day of the job and doesn’t know how anything works, like the cash register or basic capitalism. So, just to be safe, they scan your items with the speed of Han Solo trapped in carbonite.

Kmart is also full of people who have never shopped before. Or so you would reasonably assume, once you see how they react after being handed their receipt. These people proceed to stare at this piece of paper as though they have never seen such a thing before in their life.

“A list of the goods I just purchased 18 seconds ago? What witchery is this!? I had better stand here and inspect this devil paper in excruciating detail, the next person in line be damned! Now, this first item here, dear merchant, I see it says the puzzle of the ducks on the water was $5.99. That’s interesting, indeed. Oh yes, I knew it was $5.99. I just find it interesting. Now as for line two…”

But mock though I do, dear Kmart, the fact remains I need you, at least until my kid can wipe his own butt. And even I must admit that entering through your magical, time-warp doors is always an adventure.

I’d tell you to never change, but there’s no need.