They're Going to Send You to Milledgeville

"They're going to send you to Milledgeville." This phrase used to be synonymous with "you're crazy" or "they're going to send you to the loony bin!" Milledgeville, GA is home to the Central State Hospital, which was once the world's largest mental institution. In the mid-1800s it was officially called the State Lunatic, Idiot, and Epileptic Asylum. The hospital closed in 2010 although I believe a few wings are still up and running. Many southeastern residents today can still remember when saying, "You're going to Milledgeville," meant you were so far off your rocker that it was time you were locked up. This past week I felt like I had truly "been sent to Milledgeville."

A month ago I hosted two friends at my apartment and bought a queen-sized mattress from Walmart to accommodate them. Sometime after 2 a.m. and many bottles of wine we learned that I had mistakenly purchased an air mattress without a pump. Obviously the purchase was a bust and I went back to Walmart a few days later to return the air mattress. The girl at Customer Service told me that I could not return the mattress since the box had been opened. "But it wasn't used," I said, "I basically opened it, realized the mistake, and put it back in."

"All I can offer you is an exchange," the clerk responded.

"For another air mattress?"

"For this same mattress or one at a higher price."

I let this information sink in. "So I can just return this air mattress for the exact same air mattress, but in an unopened box?"

"Yes."

"Or one of a higher price?"

"From the same maker."

"So still leaving me with the problem of not having an air pump."

"Yes."

"Even though I don't want this air mattress or any other air mattress at all?"

"Yes."

I did not understand the point of that policy so I took the mattress back with me. Mildly upset, I called my boyfriend who told me to simply return the opened box for an unopened one. Then I could return the unopened air mattress. I realized this was cheating the system, but then I also remembered that Walmart sucks and what do I care if I pull a fast one on a company that used to lock its employees inside so they couldn't leave during Inventory.

This is also a time to mention that, although I have grown up in many small towns, I consider myself a city person. I thrive off the hustle and bustle and anonymity that living in a large city affords you. I love walking down a sidewalk and cramming into a subway car with hundreds of other people - way too many to constantly make eye contact with and greet. Returning or exchanging an item makes me feel uncomfortable because I feel like I'm doing something wrong, but in a city I don't care so much because I know the probability of seeing those clerks again, or being recognized by them, is very low. Who cares if I've decided the dress I bought was too small! I can exchange it at one Target and then shop at another one for the next month until I've decided my embarrassment has finally subsided.

Because Milledgeville is a small, rural town, I waited a week to make my exchange. I didn't want the same clerk to see me and possibly figure out what I was doing. So, a few weeks ago I went into Walmart and exchanged the opened air mattress for an unopened one. I wore a baseball hat because it somehow made me feel more anonymous. Thankfully, there was a new woman behind the counter. She told me to go get the new air mattress off the shelf and didn't even question why I was swapping out the exact same items. She stapled my exchange receipt to my old receipt and sent me on my way. I put the new mattress in my car and left it there for another week, again waiting until a time when both clerks would hopefully not be there. I left the store feeling devious, accomplished, and a tad insane.

Yesterday, after waiting another full week, I finally set out to return the offending air mattress. By now you may be thinking, "Why don't you just keep the air mattress? Or give/sell it to someone? This seems like a lot of work for $50." Well you would be correct. This is a lot of effort to go through just to get $50 back, but I am a poor grad student and a normal grocery bill for three weeks worth of produce is usually around $50. Also, I'm stubborn and decided that I did not want the air mattress and I'll be damned if I will not get Walmart to take it back!

Thinking Walmart would not return an item I had already exchanged I ripped the original receipt from the exchange receipt. Clerk #2 had stapled both receipts together in the middle of the paper and I assumed this was some sort of Walmart code to warn Customer Service of people trying to dupe the system, like me. So like the true crazy person I have become I set about disguising the original receipt to make it look like it had gone through Receipt Hell: I tore the top half, crumpled the paper in my hand multiple times, and then I actually licked the edge. That's right! I licked the receipt as a way to detract from the tiny staple holes that I took to be some sort of covert Walmart code.

With my air mattress and mangled receipt in hand, I strode confidently into Walmart. I waited in line at Customer Service as some woman returned two opened boxes of Family Sized Cheerios. Thankfully there was yet another new clerk behind the service desk so I didn't feel the need to don my baseball cap, which was squished into my purse. Cheerios Lady received a full cash refund and left. I stepped up to the counter, placed the air mattress in front of me and handed over the receipt. Clerk #3 scanned the receipt multiple times before looking up at me and saying, "It says you've already returned this."

My heart dropped. I had heard once that some people buy things from a store, return it, then go back to the store and grab the exact item they returned from the shelf and try to return it all over again - thus making money off an illegitimate return. My palms immediately began to sweat as I realized I looked like one of these people. Instead of confessing to having exchanged the original opened item, I let my blond hair shine brightly and feigned pure ignorance.

"Have you already been to Customer Service before?" the woman asked.

"I don't think so?" I said, wondering how weird it would look if I simply grabbed the air mattress and ran, "Not at this Walmart at least."

"I'm going to have to call a manager. Please step to the side."

I moved everything down the counter and casually pretended to text someone. Inside my head I was freaking out: It looks like I stole this! It looks like I took this off the shelf and am trying to make money off of it. Oh my god I am going to get arrested at Walmart. I played images in my head of being escorted to the holding room that stores reserve for shoplifters. Will they cuff me?, I thought, Or will they just keep the air mattress and insist that I must have taken it off the shelf? I looked around the check-out lanes that faced Customer Service. In such a rural area, I felt there was an 80% chance that someone I knew was in the store right now, ready to witness my shame as I was carted out of the building. The thought of being banned from Walmart also worried me as that would severely limit my shopping options for the next two years of my graduate school career (Milledgeville has a Kroger, two Piggly Wigglys, and a Food Depot - where will I get anything other than food if I'm banned from Walmart?!).

Finally the manager appeared. I thanked my lucky stars that she wasn't either of the first two clerks I had dealt with. If she had been, I was sure I would find myself trudging the long Walk of Shame out of the building with two Walmart security people holding my arms. Clerk #3 explained the situation. The manager and I went through the exact same exchange where I decided to continue lying instead of simply admitting that I had exchanged the opened air mattress for the unopened one and now I was trying to return the unopened one, thus finding a loophole in their system. I made my eyes wider, hoping the Dumb Blonde card would work and they'd take pity on this seemingly doe-eyed, clueless girl.

The manager turned and walked to a framed picture that I hadn't noticed before. The paper inside the frame read: AIR MATTRESS RETURN POLICY.

Motherfucker.

The manager turned back to me and handed over my receipt. "We can't return this," she said, "we have a 15 day return policy on air mattresses and it's been too long." I wanted to say, "But I actually haven't had this air mattress for 15 days! I exchanged it and this specific one has only been in my car for a week!" But obviously I couldn't. Defeated, I took my mangled receipt and air mattress and walked back to my car.

The mattress is currently still in my car where it will remain until I decide what to do next. Why don't I just suck it up and keep the damn thing? Or sell it or give it away? Or, better yet, buy a bloody air pump? Because clearly there is something in the water in Milledgeville. The aura from the Central State Hospital has spread throughout the town, making all those that move here evolve into crazy, irrational people. Or maybe I was always this loony and thus destined for Milledgeville. Either way, it's clear I need to get out of town soon and I guess my air mattress will have to come with me.

Toto, We're Not in Chicago Anymore

On Thursday, July 31st I officially moved out of my apartment in the Rogers Park neighbourhood of Chicago and headed south to my graduate program at Georgia College and State University. During the move my favourite purse broke, my dad lost his wallet, and a man in a red car was kind enough to leave some of his paint on my silver car. Needless to say, I felt the travel gods were telling me not to leave Chicago.

The drive to Milledgeville, GA was long. Google Maps says the route should only take twelve hours to drive, but with construction and traffic jams nearly every twenty miles it felt closer to eighteen. At one point I wondered if we would ever get out of the state of Indiana in two days. We did, thankfully, and arrived in Milledgeville about thirty-six hours after we left the beautiful Windy City.

The closer we got to Milledgeville (Milly) the more the reality of this move began to sink in. The small country roads, farm after farm, and 90+% humidity kept reminding me how far I was from the Midwest. Twenty-four miles outside of Milly my mother pointed out the Rock Eagle camp that I went to when I was in middle school. I was never a big fan of going to camp as a child (my mother will never let me forget the time she had to come and pick me up early because I was "sick") and I started to feel the familiar butterflies in my stomach that I would get when rolling up to a cabin with my blanket and duffel bag.

We continued along the small two-lane road. We passed spray-painted signs for "VIDALIA ONIONS" and "FRESH PECANS" and then came "PECHES". I took my eyes off the road to stare at the sign. "Peches"? Georgia is The Peach State. Someone can't spell "peaches" in The Peach State?! I looked at my mum and pouted. "What am I doing here??" She gave me her normal It's Going to be Great speech. We passed a few more farms, an abandoned plant, crossed over a large lake and entered Milledgeville.

My apartment in Milledgeville has recently changed management companies. The previous management company let the complex become a student ghetto, but the new guys are trying to spruce it up. You can both see where the new guys have done a lot of work and where some improvements still need to be made (for example, an AC vent in my kitchen likes to drip a significant amount of water during the night and three of my four windows are broken). It's not too bad though and with some real TLC I think the apartment will become pretty nice. This is the first time I have ever lived alone so that is going to take some getting used to, especially since I know no one in Milledgeville. Needless to say, this next month or two is going to be a hard adjustment (I like being surrounded by people), but I'll just have to hope that it will all get better.

After moving all of my stuff into the apartment and going out for a birthday lunch (I moved to Milly on my 26th birthday!), my parents headed back to their home on St. Simons Island. My boyfriend, who lives three hours from Milly, stayed with me to help me set up and settle in. Unpacking was a bit hard because that's when I finally realized that this was it -- the point of no return. It didn't help that the street next to me was called Hancock or that there was a sign for Water Tower Place. Every little thing reminded me of Chicago or the friends I had left and I became more and more depressed and worried that this was all a horrible mistake. I mean, I'm only twenty-six. Did I really need an MFA now? Couldn't I have waited until Columbia College could finally offer me some money? Or maybe I should have just gone to Columbia and dealt with the crippling student debt later. All of that would be better than living in Milledgeville, GA, right? Right? What if I die in my apartment and no one knows because I don't have a roommate or any friends in town?!?

Ross decided it was time to leave my apartment for a little while. I was clearly losing my mind and freaking out and I wasn't even alone in the apartment yet! Milledgeville doesn't exactly have a lot to do (aaggghh!) so we drove to Walmart to pick up some things for the apartment. For those who know me you know that this is a big deal -- I hate Walmart. I am from the Bible Belt and, for me, the website PeopleOfWalmart.com just hits a little too close to home. Walmart is scary, redneck, rude, and the people there will either run you down with a shopping cart or just shoot you if you are in their way.

So there we were -- in Walmart because the closest Target is forty-four miles away. We grabbed a few things for my kitchen, some coffee creamer, a new mirror, and a few other random odds and ends. We went through the Self-Checkout and a pair of tongs I had grabbed didn't have a bar-code. A man behind me was wearing a Walmart-blue polo shirt and a nametag so I started to ask him what I should do, but then I realized his nametag said "Kroger". The man sighed, "That's been happening all day." I wanted to pointed out that he was dressed exactly like a Walmart person and should maybe remove the nametag, but doing so would have kept me in Walmart that much longer. I found an actual Walmart clerk, asked her how I could key-in the tongs and she snapped, "I am NOT leaving my post." I remembered why I hate Walmart, put the tongs down and left.

Later in the evening Ross and I found ourselves back at Walmart. That's right -- once was not enough! This time it was to get cleaning supplies, a tire pump, and a cake with candles so we could celebrate what was feeling like a very depressing birthday. The store was mobbed. Walmart is the happening place in Milledgeville and is apparently becoming my equivalent of walking up and down Michigan Avenue. This time I started to therapy shop and impulsively grabbed a purple owl-shaped fly swatter from a bin of colourful fly swatters. When we were ready to checkout, I realized that we had forgotten to get hand soap. The toiletries section was on the opposite end of Walmart and you could barely see the aisles through the throng of people. Devising a battle plan, Ross weaved his way to Self-Checkout while I pushed and pulled my way towards the toiletries. A steady stream of "screw this, I hate this place, what am I doing here, this is actual Hell" rolled through my head.

Finally, I broke through all of the people, but was blocked by a mother and her three children. They were ambling as slow as possible with their empty shopping cart and I rolled my eyes as I trudge behind them. The Walmart crowd was oddly dense around these women, but I thought nothing of it until I passed two young girls who were whispering into a phone, "Honey Boo Boo's whole family is here!" I looked around aghast. In Chicago, I had joked to everyone, "You don't know where Milledgeville is? Well do you know Honey Boo Boo? She lives right outside of the city. Yep -- I can't wait to see her all of the time." Clearly I was kidding and never thought that I would actually see Honey Boo Boo. (I watched my first episode of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo during the trip from Chicago to Milly. It didn't exactly make me feel any better about the move...)

Now I was on the lookout. Honey Boo Boo is actually here? Am I actually going to see her? The woman in front of me turned around to look at something. She was short and plump and had laser yellow hair on the top of her head with a layer of chocolate brown underneath. Her face almost turned to look at me and I suddenly realized -- that was Mama June, Honey Boo Boo's mother. I looked at the girls walking in front of her cart and finally recognized them from the one episode I had watched. A shorter, younger girl was leading the pack. She wore gray shorts and a lime-green hoodie that was pulled over her head. She also turned towards me and I recognized her blond curls immediately: Honey Boo Boo. I stopped short and the crowd of Walmart people quickly filed passed me to get to the Boo Boo clan. I ducked into a shampoo aisle and watched everyone walk away. One woman approached Mama June and threw her arm over June's shoulder. June laughed, but shrugged the woman off and made a gesture that said, "We just want to shop. Please leave us alone." I quickly called my mother and texted my close college friends: "...Honey fucking Boo Boo just passed me in Walmart."

I met Ross back at Self-Checkout and tried to explain why I was so frazzled about seeing Honey Boo Boo. It wasn't that I was excited to see her. Honestly, had I not heard those girls whispering on the phone, I probably wouldn't have noticed the Boo Boo clan at all. I was more flabbergasted by the fact that here I was in my new "home", Hickville, USA, and I was in a Walmart and I had just seen Honey Boo Boo. I am from the state of Georgia, but I am from the coast. Coastal and inland Georgia are worlds apart and, after living in the Midwest for almost eight years and Chicago for almost three, everything was beginning to feel like culture shock overload. I needed to get out of Walmart and I needed to get out of Milledgeville. Unfortunately, only one of those things could be accomplished immediately.

Ross and I split up to pay for our separate items (I was not buying my own birthday cake). My items didn't want to scan and the machine kept acting like I wasn't bagging anything. I pulled out my fly swatter and found an empty plastic ring stuck between the owl's eyes, where the price tag should have been. I didn't know how to key-in the fly swatter and after the rude clerk from earlier I didn't want to ask for help. I put the swatter to the side and figured I'd leave the money on the conveyer belt when I was done (a whopping $1). The woman waiting for my spot grew impatient and called a clerk over to hurry me along. The man came, scanned the rest of my items for me and left. Ross finally reappeared and started placing the bags into the shopping cart. The woman behind me pushed her cart towards us, forcing Ross to move my shopping basket. She began unloading all of her crap onto the conveyer belt, even though I hadn't completed my transaction. I turned towards the woman. I wanted to yell at her and unload all of my frustration on her. I wanted to tell her to "BACK THE FUCK OFF" and that her cowboy hat was stupid and that she looked like a hick. I wanted to tell her that I hated this town and lament that I hadn't even been in Milledgeville for twenty-four hours and yet I had already run into Honey Boo Boo. My friends were far away, I had left my theatre family, I was about to live by myself for the first time ever, I had moved from a major metropolis to a town that didn't even have a Target, I had returned to the Bible Belt, which I swore I would never do, and to top it all off I was in Walmart for a second time that day. I thought about throwing my birthday cake in the woman's face. Instead, I swiped my debit card and entered my PIN. The fly swatter was still on the conveyer belt. I knew if I left a dollar then this woman would take it so I grabbed the purple owl, through it into a bag and thought, "Fuck it. I'll deal with the karma later."

Ross and I left Walmart and headed to Mellow Mushroom for pizza. As we unloaded the bags into my car I confessed my theft of the fly swatter. I pointed to the bag containing the offending object and stopped. At the bottom of the purple handle, where I had been holding the swatter, was a bar-code. The purple owl had a price tag the whole time and I hadn't even noticed it. I thought about returning to the store and paying for the swatter, but decided against it. Returning to Walmart would possibly make me breakdown in tears and I imagined myself weeping at the Self-Checkout. I had already seen Honey Boo Boo. The last thing I needed was to end up on PeopleofWalmart.com.

The offending owl fly swatter.