Eerie, Texas

Last night being Halloween and no trick-or-treaters having shown at our door by 6:45, we adjourned to dinner at our favorite Mexican spot. Had there been something showing at the local theater which we wanted to spend our senior-fare on, we'd have done that next, but there wasn't, so we didn't do the second leg of the local Saturday/Friday night trio: dinner, show, Walmart.

We raced on to the third leg. The parking lot was sparse, but we didn't think anything of that as it was Halloween. Then we saw costumed kids coming out with candy and figured Walmart was running an in-house trick or treat festival, which they were. All over the store were games and prizes and what looked like the tail-end of a long evening for the employees.

My husband took off one way and I, another. This routine is usually bound to have each of us searching the store for the other and last night was no different, but that's not the eerie part of the post. This is: Having swung through the fruit and veggie aisle, I turned up the big side aisle for meats and dairy. It's wide. Very wide. And it was very empty.

I've never seen that aisle empty. It was 7:30 in the evening and there was no one there. Really strange. I started looking at the cross aisles and they were empty too. If there were people, they were headed the other way. In fact, I went the entire side of the store and didn't meet anyone. I'd think the place more populated at midnight.

Really strange, eerie feeling. Unwelcome. Weird. Walmart without customers. No, thank you. I eventually found everyone at the check-out lines and I couldn't get there fast enough.