Must be British

I was in the local WalMart the other day. Tuesday, in fact. I am starting to refer to this as "WalMart Tuesdays" since it has become a weekly thing. Once a month, I fill up at the Love Buggs just a few blocks north of the WalMart (after I get a haircut) where I get cheap car washes ($3 on Tuesdays... "Customer Appreciation Day") but lately I have been going to the WalMart on a weekly basis. Mainly because I have become "hooked" on orange juice and they have the cheapest in town... outside of the roadside stands. I also pick up the golf results for the group I play with on Mondays so I can post them on the group's blog. The guy who runs the group lives near the WalMart. So I can kill a few "birds" with one "stone."

WalMart is a strange place here. In the summers, it is an easy-in, easy-out place. In the winters, not so much. The increase in bustle and time used is a direct result of living in a town that doubles its population during those winter months (referred to locally as "Snowbird Season"). I notice some things, as well as the increased traffic on US27 (our main artery), in WalMart... which also experiences a large increase in traffic.  A lot of Snowbirds do not understand shopping cart etiquette. Or they are from the British Isles, or Australia, or Japan, or Hong Kong... or some other place where they drive on the other side of the road.

WalMarts have wide aisles which have various displays of merchandise in what I like to refer to as the "median" since it divides the aisle and creates lanes on either side... just as you see on highways and some thoroughfares.  But, after driving on the right-hand side of the road to get to the store, many of these people abandon the the road rules and push their shopping carts down the left "lane" of the aisle in the wrong direction. Infuriating to me, of course.

Even way back in school, people followed the simple rule of traffic that says "keep right." But not these folks. I can no longer recall if we followed that rule in the Navy... starboard toward the bow, port toward the stern... we might have but it also might be the opposite. We pretty much ignored the rule in favor of expediency except when there was an emergency and a lot of people were moving about on deck... such as when General Quarters is sounded. You get no indication from the directionality of the ladders, they always face aft.

Parking lots have arrows which are routinely ignored, of course, so I do not know why this upsets me inside a store.

But it does.