Chattonooga, TN – inside this monstrous Walmart Supercentre store, recently stood Martin Williams, 43-years old, within the hair care section looking extremely bewildered for over 1 hour. It had taken him roughly 30 minutes to get there, in the first place. His wife had been out of town since over the holiday season and he was left to wander this behemoth of a store, all by himself and his frustrations were very evident to everyone around him. The confusion arose very early on as he eventually needed a map to find the final item on his shopping list, in this city-sized supermarket, which he was told by his wife that he most definitely needed to buy for his hair. The aim was to find a specific shampoo, something which he felt increasingly self-conscious about due to his manliness, but also because he needed the right kind of shampoo.
This turned out to be quite a mission, as he was unable to find any staff out on the floor to guide him through the massive shelf wall of different shampoo brands and the subsequent uses for them, plus the many differences between all of them. He went to the store looking for a shampoo, he was told to get something ‘For Dry Hair’ which he had written down on a piece of paper, to apparently cure the dryness of his hair.
Martin Williams puzzled by the shampoo branding. Image Credit: Jaelb17 – Pixabay
Since, he had never ever used conditioner in his life, because it was also sort of an “un-manly” thing to do or even ask for; and as you can see here, he usually wears a bandana, which always fit in with his motorcycle, so well. Time was up though and he needed something for his dry hair.
The confusion only got worse when his personal trait of overthinking came into play; after all, this wasn’t Martin’s remit or expertise. Once, he had settled on a shampoo brand that looked decent, he mulled over the many options until he finally found it, it said ‘For Dry Hair’, clearly on the bottom of the shampoo bottle.
By this time, it had taken him over an hour to get there. He picked up the bottle and then it hit him like a ton of bricks. Was this shampoo for dry hair, as in, would it make your hair more dry, than it was before? Or was this shampoo, in fact, for dry hair, as it would help to make your hair less dry than it was before?
Martin tried to find a staff member in any of the nearby aisles, but was unable to locate anybody in the vicinity. Martin told us, “I find it deplorable that it has to be this hard, just to get a bottle of shampoo”.
We understood what he meant, along with his frustrations and the complete lack of help available in such a convenient store, yet nobody was around to help him. Martin stood around in the aisle, then walked around in a confused circle with the shampoo bottle, until he was seen on a store security camera, ultimately they began wondering what he was really doing for such a long time in the shampoo aisle.
Photo Credit: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/Getty Images
Alas, after a further fifteen minutes, the Walmart store security came down to see him. They didn’t expect him to be so happy to see them, as Security Guard, Rudy Weaver recalled him saying, “Thank god, that you’re here. I was almost losing my mind. Can you please tell me, “Is this shampoo ‘for dry hair, or against dry hair’?” Martin added, “because it says ‘For Dry Hair’. My hair is dry, so I want ‘Against Dry Hair’.
Rudy was surprised and he “radio-d” back to dispatch using the code for “this is not a shoplifter”, and then told Martin that he would call for an employee to solve the mystery of this shampoo confusion.
Mr. Williams was happy he could finally get the matter resolved after waiting a further 25 minutes at the information desk, deciphering the shampoo problem with a bewildered staff member. Nobody could say for sure, if it would in fact make his hair more dry or less dry than before.
Martin told us, “I can’t wait for my wife to come back home, so that I never have to go through this sort of thing, again”.
We commiserated and understood that often times, large shopping centers can be very confusing, infuriating and even drive you to the brink of insanity, if you’re not the type of person that should be in there, in the very first place.
The good news is that Martin revealed that his hair is now less dry, after taking a gamble on the shampoo.
<Story by The Narrator>
Featured Photo Credit: HotCountry
