Water theft on aisle 9

Warning: The following is in no way a good reflection on my character or ability rationally handle a situation .

.

Walmart has established a new policy regarding the checking of receipts. This has always been the policy at Sam's but there you pay to enter. It is seemingly part of the exclusivity. Walmart is where you go to pick up a $0.99 toenail clipper, not pickles and Tylenol in bulk. Still, in light of the holiday season, I can see their desire to cut down on the stolen dvds and dirt vacs leaving the store. With this in mind, I haven't quarrelled when they wanted to check and see if I really did pay for that box of diapers or $5.00 board game. All that said, tonight I ran in to do grocery shopping, with Joshy in tow, at the end of what had been an extremely long day. Running through the aisles, we managed to fill up our cart in record speed. Waiting in the ginormous lines, while annoying, was hardly unexpected and with Joshy in good spirits, ultimately fine. Once checked out, we head to the door and are met by the official receipt checker. My non-bagged items were a package of Ozarka waters and a fridge pack of gingerale. First off, if I had stolen DVDs or whatever other electronic items they are intending to protect, the chance of me leaving it out on display instead of hidden in one of the multitude of bags seems slim. Second off, don't you think the policy is more for the person walking out the door with the bicycle in their cart instead of the hurried parent and their fridge pack? Regardless, I give her my receipt and she highlights the gingerale and begins to search down the receipt for the water. The seconds tick by as she keeps mumbling about how she can't find it. People are lining up behind me, Joshy is becoming ancy, and this lady is bent on saving Walmart, one package of Ozarka at a time. By now flustered, I scan over the receipt and not seeing it, just say fine and take the water from my cart and throw it to the side and head out the door. When I get to the car, I pull out the receipt and sure enough, there is the water. Only instead of Ozarka is says OZ. Top secret code indeed. Now entirely aggravated, I throw my groceries into the car, grab Joshy, throw him in the back of the cart and take off in a run back towards the store, anger pummelling logic and jumping in the driver's seat. I barrel through the door receipt in hand and walk towards where my waters still sit. Reaching out, I show the gentleman hovering over them my receipt where he looks and says, "Yeah, that is waters". Grabbing them I toss them in the cart and then proceed to say how clearly, after buying over $100 in groceries, on a whim I decided to steal the waters. $3.88. I'm sticking it to the man. I then rip the receipt out of his hand and rush back out as fast as I came, the little voice in my head screaming, "I can't believe I had to mess with this. They were on the receipt, you water nazi!!" As I finally sat down in the car and took a breath, it hit me. I am fairly certain that I just stormed in and out of a store making a complete scene, verbally attacking a 17 year old boy over a package of waters. If I hadn't gone from 0 to killer robot in 10 seconds, I could have looked over the receipt and shown her the line item. But, no. No, I was the angry lady yelling at the McDonald's attendant because she asked for no pickles. The furious executive telling the Exxon receptionist to let me talk to her manager. Classy. Even now, I am still winding down from the overdose of adrenaline and laugh, only imagining someone asking me what is wrong. The Walmart lady said she couldn't find the waters on my receipt!!! Right. Clearly logic would side with me.

So, what's that slow to anger thing again...