Shameful Admission...

I had one goal and one goal only when I left the gym yesterday. Okay make that two goals. The first was to rid myself of the seriously nasty men germs I knew were crawling all over me after having to use the men's locker rooms due to renovations taking place in the woman's locker room. I don't care what the wonderful employees of Lifetime Fitness said they did to "clean" the men's locker room to make the female members comfortable in the guys dungeon and I don't care, because the thought of sweaty, smelly, man feet walking barefoot on the same carpeting as me and sitting their stinky, hairy arses and pale upper thighs on the benches was enough to make me want to lean over and puke down the side of my bed, (oh yes, I've done that too!)

But I digress, this story really isn't about the gym, it's about my singular goal: to go to Walmart (which is nearly across the street from my gym), and pick up a cheap copy of Britney Spear's latest CD.

If you haven't stopped reading, I'll consider that a hopeful sign that we're still friends even though I went to get the new Brit-Brit CD the day it came out. While I'll admit that her new single "Womanizer" isn't the deepest, most lyrically enriched song, it's a catchy tune and I own all of her other albums so I figured why stop now! But back to the story...

Fortunately, us Plymouth/Canton citizens have plenty of great grocery shopping options like Kroger's, Meijer's, Busch's, Hiller's Market, etc... so I haven't spent more then a handful of times in a Walmart except for emergency situations, like the new Britney album. Two bad cosmic occurrences collided to make this Walmart trip different then the rest: 1. I was in no rush to get home so I didn't have to scamper through the store and 2. the CD section is in the complete back corner of the store forcing me to walk through the entire facility. I don't know my way around the store so I headed straight when I walked in and this took me right to the ladies accessories section, i.e., undergarments, scarves, gloves, etc... it was at this point when I was walking through miles of colorful scarves that I suddenly realized I "needed" a green paisley scarfy-wrap thing for only $5.00, and the softest pair of pajama pants ever for only $9.00 and some new socks for only $3.00, pretty soon my hands were full since of course I didn't stop for a cart on my in with the intention of only leaving with one CD! Next I walked past the movie section and there were loads of newish movies for only $6.00 a piece, $6 can you believe it?!? So I grabbed Ocean's Thirteen and The Golden Compass and went to look for the Britney CD. After grabbing the album I shamefully had to go back for a cart so I could pick up 2 nice wooden and leather folding chairs for when we entertain more then 6 guests! I was out of control, and didn't have the wherewithal to realize the evil trap that is Walmart! Besides the CD, the thought of a green scarfy thing had never crossed my materialistic mind but at only $5.00 it was a NEED TO HAVE item, along with PJ pants, socks, movies and chairs! I ended up spending $146.00, precisely $134.00 more then I would have spent if I'd just downloaded the dumb thing off of Itunes...and at least Itunes doesn't produce their songs from South American sweatshops!! Now I'm not here to get all political or raise awareness on causes, I leave that to my liberal Diva counterpart, but the stereotypes must be a little bit true for those kind of prices. Yes, I was delighted to save $1.30 on my toothpaste and .98 cents on my face wash but the thrill was short lived when I realized I spent way more on useless crap I don't need! I'm not knocking on anyone who shops at Walmart but I think yesterday will be one of my last trips there, until I can get the sweatshop images out of my head and control my useless spending.