How I almost died at Wal-Mart.

Ok, let me preface this by saying that I rarely shop at Wal-Mart these days. Target is just as close, and I tend to like their stock better. And I do my grocery shopping at either Brookshire's or Kroger.

But today, I had a very odd collection of things to buy (some books, an outfit for the baby, a few grocery items, and some hardware things) and not much time to do it. Soooo, I loaded booger into the car and headed for Wal-Mart. The day was rather cloudy, so I threw an umbrella in the car.

As I pulled into my parking space, a few drops of rain landed on my windshield. I got out, got the umbrella, my purse, and the sanitary wipes (for the cart. Clay always likes to gum the handle. Ew.). Then, I went to get the baby. Once I had him in hand, the rain started coming down. I tried to open the umbrella, and all of a sudden this HUGE gust of wind hit us from behind, pulling the umbrella inside out and nearly knocking me over.

The wind really started coming at us then, and the baby started crying. I started running for the doors for the store. As I ran, I heard this huge boom behind me. I turned for a second, and I saw that one of the cart corralls (where you roll your cart in to store it in the parking lot) had COME LOOSE from the ground and was blowing around, slamming into some cars in the lot.

As we approached the doors, Wal-Mart employees were there, waving us in. When we got inside, a very nice woman from the deli counter gave me some paper towels to dry the baby off with and directed us to the center of the store, where everyone was going to wait out the tornado.

We got down on the ground with our backs to the fitting room, and I put some clothes over little man's legs and feet, just in case. (He was actually a little trooper. He didn't fuss at all.) I called my husband. The network wouldn't let me put a call through, but it did let me leave him a (probably rather frantic) message.

It was scary. I mean, I didn't even know there WAS a tornado coming. (Stupid me. I never watch the Weather Channel.) I hadn't heard a siren all day. The thing just seemed to come out of NOWHERE. And I felt like a bad mom. Here I was, at a cruddy Wal-Mart, and a tornado was coming. I'd put him at risk, and if something happened now, I might not be able to protect him.

We could hear all this hail coming down, and the BOOM of the cart corralls as they knocked into people's cars in the lots outside. As I sat on the floor, I thought that dying in a Wal-Mart, with my baby and I covered with cheap capri pants, was definitely NOT the way I wanted to go. I mean, what kind of obit would I have? What would be written on my tombstone? "She only wanted a one-stop shop"? "Baby's life worth the savings"?

At any rate, when the worst of it seemed to be over, the store employees told us to go home. I went into the parking lot expecting my car to be totaled, but it was miraculously dent-free. I saw several other vehicles, though, that were not so lucky. Some whole back windshields were out where the cart corralls had knocked into them.

I loaded my sweet, precious baby into the car and drove straight home, where I kissed on him and thanked God that my own poor judgement hadn't wrecked everything.

Sheesh.

Comments

Don't feel bad.

You were probably safer at Walmart than anywhere else, certainly safer than being in the car and probably safer than being at home.

I didn't get any damage at home but there still isn't power.

In our area it looks like Old Fannin Road got hit the worst. I drove down there this morning and saw several spots where trees were down on power lines.
Supermom said…
No. Poor judgment was KNOWING a tornado might be coming and still taking a chance by running into Wal-mart.

You were totally oblivious so that doesn't count. =)

(it WAS scary wasn't it? we had a large tree down but thankfully away from the house)