This is my month to be off on Mondays, which means a day of errand running. After a lunch at Chick-Fil-A (it’s pronounced “filet” for all you folks west o’ here) we headed over to Wal-Mart for a little financin’.

A few weeks ago, I received a coupon in the mail from First Federal bank with an offer just too good to pass up. If I open a checking account with a minimum $50 balance, they will straight up give me $10. Then, after 90 days, they’ll give me another $100. This is basically my chance to go back in time and buy Google when it first came out. (Though, I’m only able to buy a single share, but still.) If you think that giving me $110 for a $50 investment is the reason why the banking system collapsed, I’ll not argue with you. Though I will still expect my $110. I’m all about the Hamiltons, baby.

So one of the things that makes our Super Wal-Mart so killer-awesome is that it has a bank INSIDE of it. A bank that is open 7 days a week. That’s right. If I need to complain to a bank teller on Sunday, I now can. (Scratch that dream off of the list. Our Mart is also rockin’ a nail salon, a hair cutting place, a photo studio, an optometrist, a tax center, a sandwich shop and a few other things I can’t even recall.) So while I’m going through the process of opening the new account, I’m chatting up the girl that is helping me. I tell her that I bet it would be interesting to just sit at her desk with a notepad and just jot down random conversations that you hear happening across the aisle in Wal-Mart. She heartily agrees and then tells me that I wouldn’t believe some of the things she sees and hears. (No joke. While we’re talking, someone actually goes to the teller counter and says, “Is this here a bank?”) She says after 10 hours in a Wal-Mart you basically can’t leave fast enough and that even though she knows she is paying more, she chooses to do her shopping elsewhere.

That’s when she asks me if I’ve ever heard of peopleofwalmart.com. I haven’t. Now I have, and, oh... I can’t... I mean... It’s just so... I mean... Have you ever... Words alone...not enough... The horror. The beautiful, awful horror.

The Web is full of many strange and wonderful things, and this might be the strangest and most wonderful of all. If you call looking at circus freaks doing their grocery shopping wonderful. Which I do. At the risk of losing every reader, I feel that I must share this ethnic treasure with you. If you’ve ever wondered what lard-filled slice of Americana shops at Wal-Marts across the country, here is your Golden Ticket to Wonka-land. Drink deep from the chocolate river, ride the boat, and eat an everlasting Gobstopper.

I’d say that the images are NSFW, but, seriously, they’re not safe for ANYWHERE. Every image is a worse car/train/plane wreck than the last, but I dare you to stop yourself from clicking “Next.” And as someone who visits Wal-Mart on the average of at least two shameful times a week, I must say that it’s true, it’s all true... And to Gary, my Parisian reader, living in the world’s cradle of fashion and style. Oh, gosh, seriously, what can I say? Gary, some Americans are fat and some Americans are lazy, and some Americans are fat AND lazy. And all of THOSE Americans like to hang at the Mart.

Enjoy in moderation...Oh who am I kidding? Drink from the firehose!