Ammo Grrrll returns with reflections on WALMART’S [ill-timed] AMMO SALE! She writes:
Any shooter who hasn’t been in a medically-induced coma for the last two years knows that .22 ammo has been scarcer than functional hard-drives at the IRS. Given the title of my Friday guest column and my “handle,” you can guess that I am known around my Dusty Little Village (DLV) in Arizona for being keenly interested in accumulating ammo.
When it is hot in Arizona (March through November), I frequently do my daily walk at Walmart. There are multiple bathrooms, a climate controlled environment, water fountains, no mosquitoes, and doughnuts as a reward for walking for an hour. Or so. No need to keep obsessive track of the time. Do you think it is a sign of the Apocalypse or simply a sign that a person has no life if she knows the names of 42 individual Walmart employees?
On the last day of September, one of the managers (Tattoo Mike as opposed to Kneepad Mike, recovering from knee surgery) excitedly informed me that Walmart had been stockpiling cases and cases of .22 ammo and was fixin’ to have a huge sale! Color me happy! Not just any crappy old .22s either, but CCIs, the Cadillac of .22 ammo.
“OMG,” I said, in all caps. “When?”
And he said, “This coming Saturday.”
“OMG,” I repeated in sorrow and disbelief. “Saturday is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year! I can’t eat, drink, spend money or drive. And we spend all day praying.”
Tattoo Mike had never heard of Yom Kippur. So much for multiculturalism. Now, I don’t mind at all when gentiles, even store personnel, wish me a “Merry Christmas.” I say it right back. I was amused, not offended when the cashier at Byerly’s supermarket in St. Paul put a “Sale on Easter Ham” leaflet into my grocery bag, despite its being filled with Kosher for Passover food. I did not call a whiny press conference when the clueless little girl at the same market’s post office counter gave me stamps with the Baby Jesus on them for what I specifically told her were my Hanukkah cards.
But a Yom Kippur ammo sale? That I could not even attend!? That is something up with which I could not put.
I begged Tattoo Mike to sell me some the day before. He said management had anticipated possible shenanigans and the cash registers wouldn’t even allow it. I hinted broadly at a religious discrimination suit and casually mentioned that Mr. Ammo Grrrll is, among many many things, an attorney. No dice. I started making a “No justice, no peace” banner. Briefly considered looting or interrupting a symphony. Rejected idea as I do not look good in orange and jumpsuits are not handy for women of late, late middle age who have excitable bladders.
Do you think my neighbor, the Paranoid Texan, or my shooting instructor, or my poker buddy, the Iraqi vet, who stood in line would share their stash with me? Well, heck no. They are all shooters too and Walmart had a limit of 3 boxes to a customer. Each of these men would probably give me a kidney if I needed one. But asking for .22s is over the line. Like ladies in the ’50s with their precious books of Green Stamps, some things are just not negotiable. Yom Kippur ended around 7:30 p.m. They had run out of .22s by 1:30.
I’m hoping the next .22 sale is on Christmas Eve to give me a sporting chance. It seems only fair, like when an umpire flubs a call and then later favors the other team in a “make-up” call. But I’m not holding my breath.
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