The Night the Lights Went Out in Wal-Mart

The night began in a rush to get to the Methodist church. They have a whole Wednesday night program of activities. It begins with a dinner from 5-6, and then all the classes start up. Abby's friend invited her to AWANA (the friend's mom is the teacher, so I know her) so we've been trying it out. Abby seems to like it. Since we are such lazybums and don't get up in time for Sunday School, this works well. Imagine Girl Scouts, but instead of cookie sales and survival skills, they learn Bible verses. They learn so many and they earn a patch. The patches go on a vest. And they play and have fun.

So Sean was a bit late, so we got there in time to scarf down some dinner. While we are eating like starving Ethiopians, I hear a woman down the table saying there is no AWANA tonight. Then the Pastor announces that Ash Wednesday service will start down there in the cafeteria and proceed upstairs to the sanctuary. Ash Wednesday???? Man, we haven't been to church in a long time. But, we are Lutherans in a Methodist church, and even though God probably doesn't give a hoot about that, we felt kind of funny staying for the service. So, we leave.

After we get back in the car, Sean says, "I'm still hungry." So was I, actually. The kids had only eaten hot dogs. So we drive back towards town and decide we could take the kids to ol' Mickey's and let them burn off some energy. Abby falls asleep, so we drive up to Collinsville to give her time to nap. Mickey Ds is full of kids because three or four families had converged there for a birthday party. We all eat again, and the kids play. Nathan actually climbed the big tower all the way to the top. We are right across from WalMart, the Walmart I like to go to because it is newer, cleaner, and less ghetto. And with the recent success at the Fairview clearance aisle, I would like to see what their clearance aisle has.

As we pull up, there are three police cars out front. One is a canine unit. They seem to have a teenage girl in handcuffs. Shoplifting??? Anyway, we go in and start walking around. As we come back around the corner, the police are now talking to another couple of people by the greeter lady. None of our business, lets go look at toys. As we walk to the back 40, the announcement comes over the intercom, "Attention associates, we are now in full zone defense. We are in full zone defense. If your area is clear, go help your neighbor." Hmm...so what would the canine unit be here for? Shoplifting doesn't need a dog...maybe there is some sort of bomb scare??? (Why would they let people keep coming into the store?) Drugs? Hmm...

So we get to toys and I look over their clearance. Lots of Barbie stuff. Nothing really great like I found before. So I leave Sean with the kiddos (they can spend a good hour looking at toys) and go to the OTHER clearance aisle across the store. While I am over there looking over cheap crafty stuff and discount fishing tackle, the background hum DIES. The lights go OUT. Some sort of back-up lighting comes on so you can still see a bit. Now I'm a bit nervous. Bomb sniffing dogs, lots of police, now the power has been cut...

I've probably seen too many movies. I'm probably conjuring up "Die Hard" in the back of my mind. The police are out front, the power has been cut, the next step is the terrorists waltzing in taking hostages. I start to head back for the toy department to find Sean and the kids, when some associate with a crowd is telling everybody to go to the front of the store. Again, the intercom says, "Attention customers...the power is out. Please proceed to the front of the store. We don't know what happened, but the registers are still working for now. All customers and associates to the front of the store." Oh great! Now we are being corralled into the same area! I head to the front and wait for Sean and the kids. We head out of the store, and it is very eery. Walmart and all their parking lot lights were out...but the rest of the out parcels were up and running just fine.

The police are still out front, but they are letting the teenage girl go, but she is not to go back into Walmart. What a crazy night. Think I'll stick to shopping at Target.

(PS...was this a huge gigantic message from Upstairs that he didn't care for us skipping out on Ash Wednesday service to go meandering through the largest symbol of materialism and worldliness in the free world???)