The Devil's Playground Is A Sweatshop

Perhaps you've heard me mention that I am not fond of The Devil's Playground. But when you live in the middle of nowhere, the choice of grocery shopping is narrowed to this Satan's Lair, or to Save-A-Lot, where on one occasion a woman followed me through the store telling me how good looking I was and asking my marital status, and the Country Mart, which may as well be renamed Ye Olde Expired Food Shoppe. So except for meat and cheese, I make the race to the Devil every Sunday morning. To counteract his evilness, you see.

Those poor mummified checkers, and their brainless younger counterparts, endure the flames of The Devil's Playground for an 8-hour shift. It almost melts my cold, cold heart. I don't know how they can stand it. If it was me, I would ask to stock the shelves in the egg/cheese/re-called cookie dough aisle. That is the coolest place in the inferno.

I thought I might expire from heat stroke on today's shopping trip. I did not have beads of sweat on my upper lip. I had rivulets of perspiration that would have kept Bear Grylls hydrated for a week. My lovely lady mullet was soaked. You could have used the top of my head as a paintbrush for those paint-with-water books. Well, if you were an abnormally large child, and could hold me by my feet and dab my hair onto the page. Remember those? I loved those books. So what if everything on the page was the same color! I couldn't wait to see if they were red or blue or green. Do those things still exist? I can't remember my kids having one.

But I digress... the temperature in that sweatshop was out of control. The checkers tell me that every store is controlled from the headquarters in Bentonville. People down there must be more acclimated to the broiling humidity. Don't tell me Arkansas is any cooler than Missouri. My trip to the diamond park was an adventure in sweltering.

The principal of Basementia called out to me as I was leaning on my walker--I mean cart--on the way out of The Playground. I was so weak from the oven-like atmosphere that I could not respond. He asked how I was doing, and I just fanned myself with one hand. He agreed that it was already hot. Only I think he meant outside.

Sweet Gummi Mary, it was HOT! I needed a sweatband on my head and wrists to stem the flow of life's juices out of my pores. If I was a plant cell, I would have been nearing hypotonic shock. That means there is more water on the inside of my cells than outside. All my water was dripping off of me in a sweatfest, rendering my body tissues a vast Sahara, and thus the water inside my cells would begin to flow out through the semipermeable membrane by the process of osmosis, a method of passive transport. And, me being a plant, I would soon become limp and untasty, like lettuce left on the counter overnight.

But I'm NOT a plant, by cracky! All I needed was some D5W or Lactated Ringer's in a self-administered IV. Didn't you people watch that show Emergency back in the day? Since I didn't have paramedics Roy DeSoto and John Gage to hook me up under the directions from Nurse Dixie McCall and Dr. Kelly Brackett, it was a do-it-yourself kind of thing. I am so lucky to be an expert at everything TV-related.

I got OH SO HOT in that darn Devil's Playground that even T-Hoe could not cool me off. Normally, I enjoy a ride in T-Hoe, because he's so chill. Even with my AC blasting at 63 degrees, I could not cool off. Like George Costanza's shower after working out, it didn't take. Lucky for me, I did not also eat Kung Pao Chicken and get questioned by my boss, leading him to believe I was stealing Yankees' equipment.

Gosh. Well. All I meant to say was that Wal-Mart sets the thermostat too high.