Paralyzed at Walmart and Beyond

Notes from the Prairie: I Wonder Series #15

Photo by Nathália Rosa on Unsplash

It’s late Wednesday evening. I am weary, nearly finished shopping with my husband at Walmart after back-to-back church meetings.

Shampoo. I need to find shampoo. Then I’m done. Hair products—organized by brand, not by product— fill an aisle-long shelf.

I confront the plethora, paralyzed. Cheapest? I don’t see the Equate brand. Choose a brand I know? I fail to recognize a name.

Our last humongous shampoo bottle from Costco lasted more than a year. I wish Costco weren’t an hour away. I’d just get the same one, and we’d be good for another year.

I look up, down, across, and repeat.

For better and for worse, I live in a prosperous capitalist economy. I have choices. Sometimes they overwhelm me.

• Choose the cheapest? That is often a generic or a name brand that is on sale.

• Select top quality? But how do I judge that? I’ve read that some companies price items high to create the illusion of better quality.

• Take the one that is most advertised? But think of all the money they wasted on advertising and didn’t put into their product.

• Go middle of the road? I often do that.

• Choose not to patronize a multinational corporation at all? Some people I know make that choice, too. But then I shouldn’t even be here in a Walmart.

I decide to wait for Marlo to catch up with me. He appears, immediately lifts a large, black bottle from the shelf across the aisle, and asks. “Is this one OK?”

“Sure,” I say. “It’s as good as any.”

“Oh, that’s a good one alright,” says a well-groomed shopper near me. “It has a a good pH.”

A good pH!?

Amazed, I turn to her with question marks on my face.

She answers my silent question. “I was a hairdresser for 25 years, and we tested the pH of different shampoos. That was one of the good ones.”

Who knew? Shampoo should be chosen by pH level? I wonder if a low or high pH, acidic or basic, is the best for hair? I wonder if I’ll want to investigate that later. At the moment, I doubt it.

That last item now in our cart, we trudge toward the checkout counter, drive home, and fall into bed.

. . .

This morning at my keyboard, I reflect on last night’s paralysis. From the past I hear the voice of a missionary returning from years in the two-thirds world. “When I step into any large supermarket, I am paralyzed by the choices between dozens, even hundreds, of each item. For years, I had just one choice—if the item was available at all. Now I live in a world of choice overload.”

That overload is certainly a first-world problem, not a global one.

At last night’s prayer meeting one of us prayed, “Lord, we are so thankful to live in this country. We are so blessed. We have. . .” The person listed a examples of our prosperity, choosing from the list of words we often use: homes, food, heat, doctors, peace, freedom, cars, clothing . . . .

To date no one has mentioned 100 choices of shampoo.

Then we go on to pray for those less blessed. “Lord, we pray for those who do not have the same blessings that we do, for those who live in other countries, in poverty, in war, in refugee camps. Give them what they stand in need of.”

Sometimes we also pray. “And help us, Lord, to do our part in providing for others. Make us generous.”

This morning I wonder, How generous?

If all ten of us at that prayer meeting liquidated all of our retirement savings and gave them all away, it would be a cup of water that disappeared into an ocean.

My late father used to say, “If all the rich gave away all of their money, then instead of having just some poor people, all of us would be poor.” He believed some people needed riches to create work and jobs for the poor.

I understand the need for working capital, but to my non-expert mind, trickle-down economics does not appear to have worked.

I wonder again, How generous?

A flood of questions follows: Who needs to help people in poverty? Is generosity only a role for individuals and foundations? Is helping people in poverty also the role of government?

That immediately crashes my thinking against the great divide paralyzing my country, my church, my friends, my acquaintances, my family, and me.

In a recent message our pastor said that we owe our first allegiance to God, not to a political party. I agree with him, but I have no idea what that means in my life and choices.

This morning, as I sit at my keyboard under a therapy light for SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), I feel more paralyzed than I did in Walmart. I do not have an answer. My current paralysis does not help. Perhaps shouting across a huge and hate-filled canyon doesn’t help either.

I sit for a long time and decide on two baby steps:

• Read each evening the opinions from both sides of the aisle, even though I agree more with one side than the other. I need to understand the reality which is alternative to mine.

• Continue my civil conversation with a relative on the opposite side of the divide.

Is it just a cup of water in an ocean? Perhaps. But Jesus does find fault with those who failed to provide a cup of cold water.

Perhaps I should consider also an event in Jesus’ ministry: a hungry multitude and a lad with just a handful of loaves and fishes. That child offered just five loaves and two fish. It was a tiny amount, but by some miracle, it was enough.

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Carol Van Klompenburg is a writer living in Pella, Iowa. She has a BA in English and an MA in Theater Arts, and she is available for reading performances of her work. Her email address is carolvk13@gmail.com.

Her latest book, A World in a Grain of Sand: Lively Little Stories of Household Stuff, is available in Pella from Carol or from Pella’s Curiosity Shop. It can also be ordered from Amazon. Readers are calling it “stirring,” “winsome,” and “delightful.”