Oh Happy Day!

The shiny new SuperWalmart in our Village opens today. And it’s less than a mile from our house! No more 26 mile round trips to the Big Town “megalopolis” for our weekly grocery and sundry shopping. We have a perfectly nice local grocery store a couple of miles away in the Village, but their prices do tend to be quite a bit higher. However, I won’t completely abandon them. I really admire their community involvement and practice of hiring handicapped people of all stripes . Plus some of their weekly specials make the trip more than worthwhile (happens to be Diet Coke this week, a basic necessity at our house) – as long as we stick to those items. And they are right next to the Post Office and conveniently on my way home from Silver Sneakers exercise class – whereas newWalmart is the other way down the highway.

Speaking of the other way – it is a right turn onto the highway to get to newWalmart, but would be a left turn onto the highway to return home. I don’t do unprotected left turns onto this highway if I can help it as local drivers tend to drive like the proverbial bats out of hell while talking on cell phones and/or trying to control unrestrained hordes of children in the vehicle. I figure the fewer opportunities, the better my odds of not getting smooshed. I was planning on returning via the “back road”, which is what I use to get to Mamie’s or Igor’s houses. But, lo and behold, the powers-that-be are actually putting a traffic signal at that intersection – and it should be operational today, or shortly thereafter. I haven’t been up that way yet ‘cuz I don’t do the grand opening scene – tomorrow will be soon enough.

Mamie was highly incensed when the plans were first announced – it IS located on HER corner (where she turns off the highway to her house, at least ½ mile away). She railed long and loudly and often about increased traffic, noise, blah, blah, blah… She was convinced she would be able to see the parking lot lights at night from her backyard – in spite of the distance and the existence of hills and houses in-between. Granted you CAN catch glimpses of the building, if you know what you are looking for, as you traverse the back road to her house and the sight-lines thru the hills change. Now she is anticipating the opening as eagerly as the rest of us, saying she could walk there if she wanted and Grandma T (who lives with her) could ride her “tricycle” there.

Today is the big day, at last, and we shall see how things unfold.