This time, it had nothing to do with the crowds, the unsettling and sometimes illegal attempts at parenting. The approach to fashion (this one I’ve had to toss out the window given my own appearance and seemingly constant chocolate chip smear staining my chin like a beard), the sheer size of the store with greeters as far as the eye can see but no other sales staff within seven feet of any entrance. The fact that anything in the electronics section is behind a locked door, keys are somewhere in the back warehouse guarded by someone named Frazzy who is on an eternal lunch break.

I approached the sales lady who despite her happy face pin was anything but and asked if she could point me in the direction of the Kindles. I spoke clearly with my usual English accent and short of saying, “Could you show me where your e-readers with 8GB memory, wi-fi, K-I-N-D-L-E-S are?” thought I was clear.

Without hesitation she stood on her tippy toes and pointed as far in the opposite, diagonal direction from where we were standing and said, “they’re over there, aisle fifty something.”

“So, they’re not in the electronics section?”

“No, fifty something.”

As I wandered towards the fifties, I was glad I had asked because I might have wasted even more time looking in the electronics section, the Kindles must have been moved to a display towards the produce aisle perhaps as a loss leader.

As I stood surrounded by scented candles in aisle fifty, some of them so sickeningly potent with a combination pine/pomegranate/fart/vanilla/gasoline mix, I high-fived Frazzy, killing time in between breaks while I reflected on why I hated Wal-Mart.