taxesFor those who don’t know, WE are the government. Those of us who work and pay taxes are, that is.

This comes to my mind following a wasted two hours at Wal-mart trying by some groceries and other odds and ends. It started out well enough. I had been to my mother’s house for a nice dinner and visiting with several family members. Everything was fine and then I made the inexplicable decision to stop by Wal-mart on the way home to pick up a few things. I know how the Wal-mart scene works. I know that during the daytime hours its crowded and you are in for a wait at the cash registers. I’ve gone late at night enough to know that there is every indication that the entire illegal immigrant population from within a 50 miles radius is in the building doing their shopping and socializing during those hours.

I don’t care, I just want to do my shopping without unnecessary hassle and in as little time as possible. It wasn’t too crowded tonight and I thought I had hit it right and would be able to walk the miles of the enormous store without too many delays. I tend to want to be a surgical shopper, get in, get what I came for and get out as surgically as possible.

All went well until I got to the check out. Even then I was oblivious to the coming storm. The lines were short and I was patting myself on the back for how I had timed this excursion into the chaotic shopping experience that so often is Super Wal-mart. This is the point at which the surprisingly manageable trip took a decided down turn.

There was one person in front of me in the line and their products were in the process of being rung up. I started reading the headlines on the multiple magazines around. When I had read all the magazine covers I noticed that there had been no progress made in the ringing up of groceries in front of me. I was a little puzzled, then I saw the cashier had her light flashing and was looking for the manager. I sighed and picked up a magazine and started flipping through it. When I realized I had read two entire articles in the magazine I again paid attention to the lack of progress in ringing up groceries in front of me.

This time I paid enough attention to see that the problem was that the male was arguing with the cashier over whether or not their WIC vouchers paid for 3 or 4 gallons of juice. Then over whether it paid for 4 or 5 boxes of cereal. This process went on for every item and their items filled two grocery carts. Each time there was a challenge to how many of whatever they could buy, the shopping carts were unloaded and reloaded to re-count the items.

I was getting beyond impatient. In fact, as the excruciating process went on and on I was getting downright mad.

I had my check made out and had some things in my cart I really needed. If I left I would have to stop somewhere else. To top it off, every time the manager came over to sort out the current challenge, I thought we were finally going to get these people checked out. So I continued to wait FORTY-FIVE MINUTES!!!

In the end it had come down to one gallon of milk. I thought surely it was over, but the last 25 minutes of my wait were over that gallon of milk. I just kept thinking I might as well wait it out since I had waited this long and surely they can resolve the milk issue quickly. I actually thought about telling them to just put the milk on my ticket, but then I thought I didn’t want to have to pay for that gallon of milk twice - seeing as I was paying for it to begin with. That and the fact that the man (yes, MAN using WIC to pay for groceries!!!) was wearing a $150 pair of athletic shoes outweighed my urge to pay for the milk just to get them out of the store.

I had long sense come to the point of glaring at the man and the woman with him who had three children crawling all over her and the floor around her. All of them under 3 years of age. She spoke to her paramour in Spanish and he spoke to the cashier and the manager in halting, broken English.

The last time we stood there waiting for the manager to come back yet another time I leaned towards the cashier and suggested that perhaps this problem could be settled at the customer services desk so that the rest of us could get out of the store. She nervously said she would go see if she could find the manager. She left came back and we waited longer. I saw the manager walk by us at least five times, straightening displays and moving shopping carts around. I was getting really ugly at this point and asked her, ‘Do you think we’ll be able to get that milk rung up before sun rise tomorrow?’ I asked. She left to find the manager again and returned again and waited.

The man in front of me who had still not looked in my direction in spite of the glaring and remarks I had been making pulled out his wallet. He pulled his medicaid card out and I saw that he had a wallet full of cash. The cash and Air Jordans completed my transition to the dark side.

‘Senior.’ He still didn’t look at me. ‘Senior’, I said again with authority in my voice and a flat expression on my face. The woman looked at me and I glared at her until she looked away. The man finally looked in my direction but never made eye contact. I said, ‘Senior, why don’t you just pay for the milk with cash?’ I realize in a sense it was none of my business, but in my mind the fact he was using federal funds to pay for his groceries and the fact I had waited there for an incomprehensible amount of time for him to drain as much as he could out of those funds justified my interference. Especially considering I was actually about as mad as I’ve been in a long time at this point.

He replied with some statement about the government is supposed to pay for milk and looked away again.

That was it. That did it. I felt myself transforming into The Hulk. I was so furious that it surprised even me.

‘The government is supposed to pay for your milk?’ I said, it wasn’t really a question. ‘Who do you think ‘the government’ is?’ He looked away and ignored me. ‘Senior, I AM the government’. He looked back towards me confused. I had the feeling he was wondering what I meant. I was livid. ‘I work and pay taxes and therefore I am buying those two buggies full of food for you and your family. Not only that, I have to stand here and wait while you try to suck more money out of me.’

The woman said something to him in Spanish while she glared at me and he ignored me. The manager came back and started going over their WIC vouchers again and unloading and reloading their buggies again. By this time the frozen food in my buggy was melting and I was wanting to slam it into the guy in front of me. I asked the manager if this was almost resolved or is this endless cycle going to continue a while. He looked at me and gave me the ‘I’m - the - manager - and - I’ll - calm - down - this - disgruntled - woman’ look and said, ‘Ma’am, I have no way of knowing how long it will take but we will be with you as soon as we finish with this customer.’

I put my checkbook back in my purse and looked back at the manager. ‘There’s frozen food in there that’s pretty much melted, you might want to have them wait while you unload it.’ And I walked out of the store.

There are so many ways that tax payers are disrespected in this country that it is mind-boggling. People are so afraid that they will appear to be giving preferential treatment that they DO give preferential treatment to anyone other than the people who are law abiding, tax paying citizens.

/rant