So, LitterboxQuest 2007 didn't go as well as planned. Neither PetCo nor PetSmart had the model we wanted and we weren't thrilled with our choices, but I didn't want to wait on an online order and pay extra for oversized shipping, either. The PetCo is in the same shopping center as Wal-Mart, so Alan suggested we check there. I loathe Wal-Mart, at least the one in my town, and I have not shopped there for six or seven years. There are many reasons for this: getting there is a traffic nightmare, it's horribly crowded, it's always an obstacle course of stocking pallets, carts and screaming children, and one too many times I braved all of this, waited in line for half an eternity and the whole ordeal was for nothing because my debit card wouldn't work, despite having plenty of money in my account. After shuddering dramatically and sighing heavily, I trudged along after Alan toward Wal-Mart. I knew we were in trouble when I saw, in the parking lot, the white Chevy pickup with custom orange striping and an orange spoiler/wing bolted to the top. Uh...why is this necessary? Does your POS pickup really go fast enough to need extra downforce, and if it does, why would you want to? But onward, to Wal-Mart!

OMG, it was scarier than I remembered.

There were shoppers in fuzzy bedroom slippers - this was at 6PM, there were screaming, unbathed children running around the store in their (dirty) socks, there was a weird old man mumbling to himself, a guy in a mullet was chatting up passing chicks over at an endcap in home appliances...and they didn't even have any automatic litterboxes. The highlight of the trip was this frightening redneck family we passed as we were (thankfully) leaving and they were going in. Pa Redneck had that hard, I-just-got-out-of-prison look, homemade tattoos on his neck and knuckles, Ma Redneck was a leather-skinned basket-ball shaped woman, Offspring #1 was a Pat (like Julia Sweeney's Pat, except I'm pretty sure it was, unfortunately, female) and Offspring #2 was a skinny, stringy-haired skank. EEEEEK.

We get outside and Alan says, "Oh, my God, did you SEE those people? I'm going to have to take at least two showers to wash the redneckery off myself. You were right, honey: Wal-Mart should be avoided."

And then, just like in a Vincent Minelli musical, we burst into song. Well, maybe more like a John Waters musical. Alan started it: "Da-da-da-DUH! *snap snap* Da-da-da-DUH! *snap snap* The Redneck Fam-i-lee!"

They're toothless and they're drunken!
Their inbred cheeks are sunken!
Their outhouse needs a muckin'!
The redneck family! *snap snap*

Their house is just a trailer
They're wanted by the jailer
They really are a failure
The redneck family! *snap snap*

Thank you; we'll be here all week. Try the veal. *snap snap*