The Walmart Karen

So one time I was in a store I think it was a Walmart cause everything happens at a Walmart. I was going to buy a pen because I chucked mine out the window after getting writer’s block. I basically did a trick shot off the wall breaking into two and flying out the window into the road. “Sure, that’s not going to cause problems if someone runs over it, gets a flat tire, and runs into someone, so let’s just buy another one because that’s way more important than safety!” That’s stupid but so was writer’s block any writer knows how much of a pain it is to write and then have that happen. It’s like a brain freeze but for your creativity.

Anyways, I went to Walmart since I just so happen to live right next to one so I rushed over there since I just got a really good idea of what to write about next. I went to the aisle with the pens. It was like the “Back to School” aisle. Man, did I hate that aisle, but it was the first aisle with pens so I’m just going to pretend I like the aisle and not get depressed while writing about it. Anyway, Karen walks up to me with her head held up like she was trying to see how high she could keep it up before her head snaps off or she passes out from the blood rushing to her skull.

She starts to stare at me like she was trying to see my future and then that leads to the longest staring contest I have ever been in like it was a good 5 minutes of just awkward staring. Karen then flipped her hair out of her face making it look like we were in a hair commercial and then proceeded to say “Why do you have red hair? Is it natural?” Is it natural to have hair that looks like the pits of hell? No, it’s not is it, Karen? Say I think she was on the “Back to School” aisle because she never finished her education in elementary school, what do you think?

It took all that I had not to say the rudest things to her, but instead, I said “No it’s hair dye.” Karen then made a face that made her look like she was wrinkled more than the shirt I had on. “Hair dye?! Don’t you know that it hurts animals?!” Karen then proceeds to throw a tantrum in the middle of the Walmart complaining to me about vegan hair dye and how I should have used that instead of the apparent “Cow killing hair dye” I use.

“Hair dye doesn’t kill animals since I don’t pour it into an animal’s mouth or dye the whole animal.” I’m trying to be nice, but she insisted on the hair dye being bad for the environment. “Hair dye is killing the trees and infecting our water sources!” I then decided to educate Karen so I said: “Trees are not dying because of my hair dye, they are dying because people are cutting them down to make the places that are polluting the air making climate change which also causes the water to get polluted because they had to put all that wasted hair spray you use somewhere, also my hair dye is not polluting the water since I use it all and I’m not pouring it down the sink drain.” She stared at me dumbfounded at my shocking response to her drama and proceeded to come up with a snarky elder-woman response like “How dare you talk back to me like that!”

I then said, “What are you going to say next Respect, my elders?” Then she said, “Don’t back talk me young lady I will-” I cut her off by saying “Or what are you going to call my manager?” She then started to say yes but then stopped herself. Instead of saying yes she asked, “Wait, do you work here?” I give her a dumb look and say “Ma’am I’m fourteen I’m not working anywhere.”

Karen then gave the longest sigh and then said “I was going to ask you to help me find aisle five.” I told her “Well, I don’t work here but if I had to guess I would say aisle five is the aisle that has the sign saying aisle five on it.” She then left me to go shopping for my pen and then followed all the lost dignity she had in herself just lightly floating in the breeze after getting embarrassed by a fourteen-year-old. Never in her Prehistoric dinosaur era has she been told to by someone forty times younger than her. I’m still sad because I never got to insult her to her face.

However, I can insult her now so if I could go back and insult her I would tell her this: “One, I have never in my fourteen years of living ever seen someone not know how plants, trees, water, and the air are getting polluted or dying.” “Two, I don’t like talking to people I don’t know, especially if they look like they could be Albert Einstein's great-grandmother who looks like they just climbed out of their coffin.” “Three, I haven’t even been to college yet, I still have a better education than you do, though I can’t insult you with that because you probably didn’t go to college either.” I’m happy to say that I bought a new pen finally.

Usually buying a pen would take about five minutes but it took fifteen minutes, ten minutes of my time wasted on a lady that I am never going to see again in my life. I don’t know where said pen is but I’m sure that it’s somewhere. I’ll find it eventually.

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