Night Owl Cards

  I made one of my six-times-a-year visits to Walmart on Sunday. I'd like it to be less than that, but I've documented the pitfalls of living in a semi-populated area many times. I tell myself at least it's not as often as 10 years ago when I was making once-a-week trips to find cards. But speaking of that, I was there to get a couple household items, a combination of which you can only find there , or by ordering online and waiting two weeks for them to arrive in the mail. I naturally ambled over to the card kiosk section to take the edge off. It's really a candy-and-such kiosk but do I see any of that other stuff? No. It's funny how Walmart has suddenly become the place to go for cards now. Target has been a disaster since mid-2020. But Walmart, which had been a card desert for at least five years, has rebounded a bit. There, I found blasters of Allen & Ginter, Heritage, Stadium Club, Bowman Platinum and various Panini things that didn't register. I felt l

It's been some kind of week. It's been such a week that I found myself in Walmart for the second time in less than seven days and on a Friday night no less. You're just asking for it, going to Walmart on a Friday night. But I was still working on the whole Mother's Day thing and I hadn't gotten any wrapping paper. That meant go to Walmart on a Friday night or give the missus a present in a plain, gray box. I was regretting the trip for frilly stuff almost instantly. As I've mentioned before, I enter Walmart by the side entrance, where the outdoors wares are stocked (and during the holiday time, Christmas wares). It's a dandy in-and-out experience when getting in-and-out is an absolute necessity (i.e. any trip to Walmart). But this time, there was this huge, monster line at the side entrance register. Oh, this was not good. Once I got inside, the fun began. Squirrely kids trying to provoke a lawsuit everywhere. And as I dodged all kinds of ill-manner

I don't like that I go to Walmart as often as I do. I'm not there every day, but I stop by probably every other week when you average it out. It's just a necessary evil when you live where I do. It's a small city, and it's far removed from anywhere else. So it's just a fact that if you want certain things, you're going to have to do the dirty deed and walk through those electronic doors. Besides, there are baseball cards there -- or at least there were baseball cards there until Aaron Judge mania hit. Ever since May or June, the Walmart closest to me has been devoid of baseball cards. Lots of football cards. Plenty of basketball cards. A whole bunch of those magic/funko/other junk taking up valuable shelf space meant for baseball cards. But no baseball cards. My trips to Walmart of late still always include a stop at the card aisle. But I don't really expect to see anything I want. Today, I needed to go there to get some Christmas lights.

I'm sure this has happened to everyone. You leave your home. You reach your destination however many minutes later. And you realize that you have no memory of anything that happened on your travels in between. That's how occupied I was yesterday as I headed out to run a few errands. I had planned to find most of what I was looking for in Target so I could then use the Target baseball card coupons that I kept forgetting. I had also planned to stop at the ATM to break in a new debit card. But before I knew it, I was pulling into a parking spot at Walmart, of all places. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no," I said out loud in disgust as I realized where I was. I hadn't stopped at the ATM, I hadn't gone to Target where I had coupons. I was in the gross Walmart parking lot with absolutely no knowledge of how I got there. Also, I had forgotten my Target coupons. So, resigned to my fate, I opened the door and walked toward Walmart, past the broken down shopping carts