If you have not received a photo essay called “The People of WalMart,” you are the poorer for it. There are several such collections, each more horrifying than the other about the mental state of our fellow citizens. The image above is among the most benign, and I include it because it is at least seasonal.

I am not picking on WalMart, or its clientele, though I will confess that some of the acting out in that public forum mystifies me.

There is other seasonal stuff going on, and it is impossible to get away from. It is touching all of us. I got this from a pal yesterday, and it sort of summed up the day before Christmas Eve nicely.

“So, FedEx package never came & we were pissed off! My son went down to the warehouse at 10:30 @ night & managed to find it; it was shelved with some other Christmas packages from a truck that came in with technical difficulties at 9:30pm.

Thirteen hours late, sans special delivery. I wasted the whole day & night @ home all but for a quick trip to Costco when my son relieved me for an hour after work.

So its xmas eve & I will be out shopping every minute I am not walking the pretty new pooch. In the course of all that, I came across a buck-naked man at the park a couple days ago, which is another story about our declining little village by the river. I DID untangle my healthcare debacle (6hours) but would have rather been doing just about anything else.”

I imagine there is some loony stuff happening at the Costco, too, and people looking and feeling their best. I got sucked into to. I ventured out yesterday in a rare foray into the agora. There were some issues that have to be tidied up before the year ends, and could not be done through the comfort and privacy of the internet.

There was that pile of clothing I no longer have any need for: assorted suits, a tuxedo, uniform items, long ties, that sort of thing. I needed to purge it, and better, I can use the donation documents on the tax season to come. So, Goodwill was on the list, and the Class Six Store to fill up the Bluesmobile (just in case getting out of town is suddenly necessary) and stock up on Popov-brand discount vodka (just in case staying in town is suddenly necessary), and then a trip to the hip center of hipster Arlington, the neighborhood that sprawls generally from the Clarendon Metro Station down to the one at Virginia Square.

I needed a specialty item of athletic equipment, and that required a trip to a specialty store.

I am going to take a yoga class. It is time. In order to do so, I needed a mat on which to perform those strange contortions. I need to start doing something, because the computer is starting to eat me alive, and dramatic steps need to be taken.

I can’t walk that well any more, and I know the start of a graveyard spiral when I see one. The answer, of course, is to put the nose down, level the wings, gain some airspeed and soar majestically out of the downward plunge.

Swimming was good, and I love the freedom of the pool and the vigor the exercise imparts. But the winter means there is only indoor swimming, and the reek of chlorine and the too-close company of people who may have stopped at WalMart on the way to the pool.

Like my pal, there were obviously some people who had let things slide perilously close to the holiday. The parking structure was jammed, one of those deals where I drove in, got my ticket, and immediately drove to the exit due to the crush of cars. And the Bluesmobile, an imposing specimen of the Crown Victoria Police Interceptor line, is just too big to be in today’s polite society of Smart Cars and Prius-mobiles.

I found a metered space and a couple quarters in the door- two increasingly rare things in today’s world- several blocks from where I thought the yoga supply store might be located. I trudged up the hill with my fellow citizens and look in the wrong places a couple times before finding a directory that sent me across the street.

I have never been in a yoga store before, and thus this was a unique experience. I stood blinking in a sparely-modern shop, surrounded by all sorts of ominously stretchy spandex clothing intended for both women and men. I was not going to get hung up on that- should something more than my old sweats be required, I can deal with that eventually, if necessary.

I am also queasy about the whole spandex thing as a matter of basic decency. But I needed the mat. An earnest and pretty young woman in a walking cast approached me in my befuddlement. She expertly guided me to the state-of-the-art stack of rolled squares.

“Yoga mats, or sticky mats, are an integral part of any yoga practice. They protect and pad your spine and knees from a hard floor, create a personal space in yoga class, and most importantly, keep you from sliding out of those sweaty asanas.”

“What is an asana?” I asked in wonder. “I don’t have to buy one of those, do I?”

She laughed, her blue eyes clear and her short blunt-cut hair dancing on her shoulders. “No, you don’t have to buy one. An Asana is a posture, a pose, that enables meditation.”

“Like downward pointing dog?” I asked.

“Just like that. Now, as to mats, we have them in polyvinyl chloride, latex, plastic or a blend of materials. These over here are more eco-friendly mats are constructed from cotton, wool, jute, hemp and natural rubber,” she said.

“How did you break your foot?” I asked with suspicion. “Yoga?”

“No, just clumsy. You can choose between these thick ones that feature an anti-biological agent to keep you away from infection, or we also feature more eco-friendly ones constructed of jute and hemp.”

“I like hemp,” I said, “in the right context, of course. But I think I want something I won’t slide off of, that is well padded and comfy. I don’t want to fall and rip up my leg again. That is the point of this.”

“I can sincerely recommend The Mat by Le Tapis,” She said, pointing at a turquoise tube of PVC plastic. It is designed by dedicated yogis for dedicated yogis. It is extra absorbent and is made to kick some serious asana.”


“That is what I am all about,” I said. “Dedication.” I slid one out of the rack. It wasn’t nearly as expensive as I had feared, and has a logo of the Greek character Omega on the end. If I am the Alpha, and the mat is the Omega, what the hell could go wrong in between?

I cashed out and wished her a speedy recovery, wondering if I would be needing one soon, myself. I emerged on the street and into a throng of shoppers who all appeared to be concerned about something. I was going to drive back up Fairfax Drive, since I needed to get eggs for the remaining breakfasts of the Holiday season, but between me and the car was the Whole Foods, the legendary alpha to WalMart’s omega.

It didn’t make any sense to walk past a supermarket in order to drive to another supermarket, so I steeled myself for the experience.

Whole Foods has everything organic. Everything healthy and wonderful. And it was jammed with holiday shoppers, decorative plants and a sense of desperation. I got a cart to in which to put the large bulk of the mat and not knock down other shoppers, and pushed it into the throng. I am too polite to take pictures of people who are just trying to keep body and soul together, but I saw all sorts of combinations of our fellow citizens: couples, same and opposite sexes and singletons like me. At least two were clearly still in their jammies.

They were all bright, all smart, and had the patina of sleekness that only the urban hip can carry off. In the certainly of their belief system, they brooked no interference with the pursuit of their groceries, pausing periodically in the most prominent places to discuss the fiber and carbohydrates contained in the organic products. I marveled at the gigantic steam table that held a wide array of prepared foods for the busy urbanite on-the-go.

I fond the eggs- free range hormone free jumbos, natch- and became hypnotized by a block of free range white cheddar cheese that I decided I simply had to have.

Checking out was a breeze after waiting in the express line for about a half hour. The lady behind the register even slid a rubber band length-wise on the egg carton to prevent mischance on the way to the car. On the whole, it was a surreal and uplifting experience and no one commented on my yoga mat, for which I was grateful.

I motored sedately home in the police car, and was delighted that I didn’t have to go out among my fellow citizens again, until the holidays are safely behind us.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303