MENTALLY LOST IN WAL-MART

Four of the five items I bought at Wal-Mart last night.
The comforter was already in the wash.

Five items. That was all I had to remember.

After dinner last night, I made a quick run to Wal-Mart to pick up five things we needed: a twin-size comforter, shampoo, Parent's Choice baby formula, Oh's cereal and Special K Protein Plus cereal.

See if you can remember those items by the time you finish reading this. Personally, by the time I made the 10-minute drive to Wal-Mart I could only remember one of the items.

The comforter. That one I remembered because we have company coming tomorrow to stay for a few days - the Mother-In-Law and the Uncle. We've never had more than one house guest at a time in the new home, so we've never needed this many comforters before.

While I tried to remember the other items,  I picked out a lovely brown and tan reversible comforter. Of course, I could not remember whether the Wife said we needed a twin size or a full size. We had one kind at home, but damned if I could remember which one.

So I texted the Wife. Twin or Full?

We needed twin.

Great. I started to head toward the food area, since I remembered we needed baby formula. Got halfway there when I remembered we needed some kind of bathroom item. Not that I could recall what kind of item.

So I wheeled my cart back to the bathroom stuff section. And then I stood there, talking to myself. I'll be honest, I don't know whether it was an internal or external conversation. Seriously, I stood there for about seven minutes trying to remember what it was that we needed. If the look on my face matched the confusion and frustration going on in my head, then there's a better than average chance you'll be seeing me on peopleofwalmart.com sometime soon.

How bad was it? At one point, a woman approached me and asked if I needed any help. She did not work there.

For whatever reason, I thought about the fact that the Uncle is bald (shaved head), and that's when I remembered the shampoo.

With two items down and three to go, I made my way to the food section. My travels took me by the $5 DVD bin. Sooooo tempppptteeed!!!

A sample of my thoughts as I walked by the $5 bin:

- Dog Day Afternoon for $5. That's a steal!

- All four of The Substitute movies on one disc for $5. That's still a ripoff!

- THE GOONIES!!!!! Oh wait, we have that one… twice.

Despite the heavy pull of Wal-Mart gravity to the $5 bin, I walked by and kept going to the baby section.

We needed the formula in the purple tin. Ah yes, Parent's Choice, that's the one! 

Except I was not sure. There was Parent's Choice Premium, Parent's Choice Sensitive, Parent's Choice Soy-Based, Parent's Choice Advantage, Parent's Choice Original and Parent's Choice Gentle.

So I stood there for several minutes trying to picture the tin in our cabinet at home. All I could remember was purple. This time was even worse than in the bathroom product section. Besides the confusion and frustration, I was also dumbfounded. Before leaving the house, I had actually opened the cabinet, looked at the tin and remembered the brand name. 

I had no idea baby formula had so many flavors. Rather than guess, I took a picture of the one I thought we used, and once again, I texted the Wife. Turns out my instinct was right… we needed the premium.

If you are counting, that is twice that the cell phone saved me in Wal-Mart. 

Now on to the last two items. I got the Oh's Cereal first. When I remembered the shampoo, I remembered that I was getting Oh's because the Mother-in-Law and the Uncle love Oh's, which are not always available in their neck of the woods in Pittsburgh.

Four items down, one to go. 

What the hell was it? For the third time in one trip to Wal-Mart, I could be seen standing in an aisle, staring at nothing in particular. I leaned against my cart, my head down, burning brain cells as I tried to think of the last item.

All I could remember was the last thing the Wife said as I went out the door.

"Oh, one more thing. Could you look for _____?

Do you remember what it was? It took me five minutes of wandering up and down food aisles to remember.

The answer? Special K Protein Plus cereal.

That's right. I had to remember five items. Two of them were cereal. I was in the cereal aisle, and I still could not think of it for the life of me.

With the five items in my possession, I was finally able to leave. Thank goodness. What should have been a half-hour jaunt to the store took far, far longer and all I wanted to do was go home.

Now, where did I park?