Stinky Mother Fucker: Trauma at Wal-Mart

I can't remember exactly when this particular incident happened, but I'm pretty sure it was last spring. I'd run into Stinky Motherfucker enough after the Save-A-Lot incident to know to keep my distance and keep moving as quickly as possible.

Around this time, I had all three children in a drama class through the local Allied Arts. For $10 per child, they received one afternoon of acting instruction per week over a nine week period (it may have actually been twelve weeks, I can't remember) that culminated in a skit performance. My smaller two attended for one hour on Tuesdays, while Tuba Girl recieved an hour and a half of time a week. You can't even begin to beat $10 for something like that. It gave them something interesting to do, allowed them to investigate or develop interests and talents, and made me feel like I was doing something productive at a great price. (This is the frugal/money management part of my blog.)

I usually spent the time Tuba Girl was practicing as a chance to do any quick running while I was still in town. Somewhere between leaving my last class and picking up my children, I'd managed to rip a hole in my jeans.I caught it on a screw or something I suppose. It's hard to say because I'm a very clumsy person and spent a lot of time being referred to as a "bull in a china shop" as a teenager. 

The hole unfortunately, was somewhere just below my ass, right at the top of my thigh. Not huge, but I knew it was there. I didn't have time to go home and change, but thought I was rather in luck. From maneuvering around in front of a bathroom mirror, it didn't seem the hole was showing my ass and I was wearing a large button down shirt that seemed to cover the hole as long as I wasn't too active. I resolved not to shop from the bottom shelves.

On this particular afternoon, I went to Wal-mart to pick up a few groceries and things. I met my old high school Algebra teacher over in the tea and coffee aisle where she turned me onto some superfruityhippiemangopomengranatecolorectalcancerprevention tea or something like that. We talked a few minutes and I made sure to stand and walk away at such an angle that hopefully she couldn't see the hole in my pants should my shirt not actually be covering it at all times.Other than that, I tried to do my shopping as if I were a perfectly normal person doing her grocery shopping in fully functional blue jeans. I'm really glad People of Walmart had not been created at that point.

After picking up the tea on her recommendation, I hoofed over to the breakfast aisle with two small heathens in tow trying to remember what it was I had decided we really needed. The amazing pretty yellow of a box of LARA bars caught my attention and while I was in deep concentration over the ingredients list, some asshole tapped me on the shoulder and said, "HI!"

Seriously. Don't fuck with me while I'm reading a box. I'm trying to figure out what dihidroxyde guano monojedinuclear sulfates are. It takes a lot of work to break down the Latin shit to see if this product is going to kill me immediately or later on down the road. Besides, I'd wasted my socializing time speaking to my 50 year old Algebra teacher who seems to have decided somewhere within the past couple of decades that heavy black eyeliner is becoming.

I frowned up at the interloper. I had on my frowny eyebrows, crazy squint eyes, and pinched lips to let this person know that I did not have time for this banal shit. I expect people to pick up facial cues because I actually don't say a whole lot. If I'm particularly angry, I try to keep my mouth shut because I can be a very mean person when I don't intend to be. It's probably a self defense mechanism. It allows me to continue to mill around in general pop.

So who am I frowning up at other than a smiley faced Stinky Motherfucker. Shit.

"Hi!" I said and went back to staring at my box of LARA bars.

Stinky, it appears, is wearing the exact same shit the last time I ran into him at the parking lot of KAR Elementary. (The parking lot incident happened after the Save-a-lot Turmoil and was the first time I became aware that Stinky Motherfucker has children attending my fucking school. This is my school I've been a parent here for more than ten years. I'm a fourth generation KAR Elementary student. Oh mah god. I have seniority. Leave. Now.) Anyway, so it's worth noting he's wearing the same greasy ponytail, molestor mustache, nasty plaid coat, and whatever the hell else he wears. I imagine he has an entire closet full of pre-greased plaid coats.

I look up from my happy yellow box for a moment and stare at him. Stinky is in the middle of some tale about a water leak under his trailer that the water department refuses to fix because it's on his side of the meter, but that's unfair because it's a water pipe so the water department should see about it. And, if I remember correctly, it ran their bill up so high their water was cut off.

Dude. Just fix the fucking pipe. You need a hacksaw, some pipe, some couplers and a can of that blue shit. If I can do it and not cut off an arm, I'm almost willing to bet Stinky Motherfucker can do it. Pipes aren't always rocket science.

Stinky rambled off about something else while I went back to staring at the ingredients section. And then I realized this mother fucker is never going to shut up. Besides, I have children with me this time and what if he goes off on some random discourse on how he likes to stick his dick in a rusty tailpipe or something else equally mentally disturbing?

Finally, I put the LARA bars back on the shelf because I was tired of looking at the box and I was tired of listening to this son of a bitch. "OK! Well, I have to go pick up Tuba Girl! Gotta go!" And I ran off while Stinky Motherfucker was in the middle of telling me to "come by and see us sometime!"

I grabbed whatever it was I could remember to grab and made my way over to a register. My former Algebra teacher came in right behind me at the checkout and were discussing job opportunities. I was trying to keep everything peppy and whatever hoping maybe I would be able to consider her an "in" if anything came up at the prep military school where she was currently teaching.

We were in the midst of discussing the health benefits of bananas when Stinky Motherfucker walked to the register in front of me. Out of the twenty or thirty frigging registers available, he chose to walk to the one right in front of me.

What the fuck am I? A goddamned magnet? Go away, Stinky! I'm working up a mother fucking job. This is how jobs are made in this town. It's not what you know, it's who you know and I needed my loopy ass teacher to remember that she knew me in a positive manner. Not with some Stinky Motherfucker talking about his ass gasket stretching techniques or whatever weird shit he does with Wife Thing.

I briefly nodded to acknowledge Stinky and then pointedly turned my head back to Algrebra Teacher. That is a direct sign that a person is already engaged in a conversation and you should just go have your goddamned meat roll of ground beef and gross of Mountain Dew scanned and leave me alone.

Except Stinky Motherfucker did not leave me alone. As I was simultaneously passing my grocery bags into the buggy and making my goodbyes to my new best friend, the Algebra teacher who may help me get a job, Stinky slowly backed up.

And suddenly, I felt the odd jab of Stinky skin at the hole of my pants while Stinky Motherfucker leaned over my shoulder and said loudly, "You have a hole in your pants!"

There were so many decisions that had to made in that single frozen moment of time. In nanoseconds, I had to process the fact that Stinky Motherfucker had poked his finger in the hole of my pants and decide what was I going to do. There were questions I had to discuss with myself and there was not enough time between action and appropriate reaction to adequately give them my full attention.

Did I ever want to be allowed back into the Wal-marts? Would they charge me with cruelty to children if I explained why I did it? Did I really want the last impression a potential reference see is that of me flinging an almighty fit and beating the shit out of a Stinky Motherfucker? Oh. What to do? What to do? Why me? Why?

Still attempting to talk to my Algebra teacher, load my buggy, process the situation and keep my cool, I quickly brushed his hand away from my personal being, quietly stated, "I know that" while never turning to look at him. I made my goodbyes to my former teacher and did the double time chunky woman shuffle out of the store.

DMan and Wild Boy obviously weren't picking up that I was ready to leave immediately because they proceeded to attempt a quarter coup over by the claw machine.

When I refused to stop and actually threatened to toss them both in the buggy if they didn't move now, they asked me why they couldn't have a quarter. The best I could work up was a, "We have to get the hell out of Dodge." It's all I could say without transforming into a shrieking wreck of pissed-off shock in the middle of the parking lot.

And that is the kind of mother fucker Stinky Motherfucker is. Not only is he crude enough to loudly note in front of the entire Wal-mart register area that you have a hole in your pants two inches from your ass, he's the kind of mother fucker to quite literally point it out. He's the kind of mother fucker to rip down the mental defense you had going on in terms of how bad things really were back there.

In short, Stinky is one uncouth mother fucker.