Bachelor Party Shopping at Wal-Mart

There is more to the story as far as the entire wedding situation goes, but I'll limit this entry to the events of tonight. More on the rest later!

Around 5:30 pm today, I realized that I was going to go to a bachelor party (of sorts), and that it would be more entertaining (and feel like something other than just wings at a bar) if someone bought some gag gifts. With advanced notice, I could've gone to a XXX store and bought some really embarrassing stuff, but I could only drive so far and only had so much time, so my only choice was to stop at Wal-mart on the way.

I knew I'd do OK as long as this Wal-mart had a pharmacy, and it did. I let that be my final destination in the store. First, I went to the video section to look for a copy of the Tom Hanks classic film "Bachelor Party." I could either give that to the groom or to the "best man" who quite understandably had no idea what a bachelor party was. They didn't have "Bachelor Party," but they did have "Bachelor Party 2: (some obvious but forgettable sub-title)" so I picked that up. Next I went to the toys section. It took me a minute but eventually I found some handcuffs. I was actually relieved to find them, because its been awhile since I'd been in a toys section and I thought that the simple pretending to be some occupation toys may have been completely replaced by the latest whatever is on TV garbage.

The next item I found was exactly the kind of thing I hoped to find at Wal-mart. I don't know how long ago it was that the department stores starting carrying smart-ass T-shirts, but I figured I'd find something stupid for the groom to wear tonight in that area. I was torn between the "I listen to what my wife is thinking" shirt and the "I look like I'm listening to you but I'm not" shirt when I found the perfect shirt--a stick figurish/traffic signish picture of a bride and groom holding hands, a smile on the bride's face and a frown on the groom's face, groom with a ball and chain attached and a caption below the graphic: "GAME OVER." How perfect is that? And how just like Wal-mart to know that their regular clientèle would love to buy shirts like these.

Finally, I stopped by the pharmacy and picked up three other items... you can probably guess a few of those. I headed to the checkout and was going to be particular about which line to go to, but they were all too long so I headed to the self-checkout and unfortunately had to skip a potential amusing conversation, or so I thought. I scanned all the items, but the last item (the DVD) errored out so an attendant had to come over. She cleared the DVD purchase and I told her what I was up to. She said she normally doesn't pay much attention to what everyone is scanning, but was curious about mine as they were being displayed on her screen, because pharmacy item #2 should really prevent the need for pharmacy item #3. She understood once I told her what I was doing.

When I arrived at the wing place, I instructed the hostess give the groom the shirt when he walked in. Then I revealed the other items after every ten wings or so. There was only five people there for the party (the "best man" wasn't there BTW), and it might've felt like a very normal dinner if it weren't for the gag gifts. Thank you, Wal-mart!