opposites attract

Whenever I stop in Bend, there is one store I never miss on my shopping trips.  Walmart.

In Mexico, Walmart is the shopping choice of the middle class.  The store has a certain social caché.

Not so much in The States.  But it does have good deals on lots of products.  Even better, though, it is replete with raw blog material.

Take the shot at the top of this post.  I was on a mission to find a blood pressure monitor.  You may recall that the non-functioning monitor I once owned in Mexico disappeared in the December burglary of my residence.

Walmart always has a nice variety of merchandise.  And that was true of the monitors.  But my blogger's eye was soon distracted by the juxtaposition of the "home drug test" and "DNA paternity test" sitting side by side on the shelf.

Every prop deserves a play.  I envisioned the boxes being purchased by a frustrated mother of a 32-year old son who lives in her basement behind a padlocked door where he plays video games through the night and most of the day -- the part of the day when he is not sleeping.

Mom: "What did you do last night?"

Son: "I dunno."

Mom (unwrapping boxes): "Well, let's see what these little tests can do to refresh your memory."

Mexico is well known for its eccentric placement of products.  Such as, putting the hemorrhoid cream between the lip gloss and the hair gel.

But Costco in Bend has Mexico beat.  Or, at least, it will be a photo finish.

Darrel and I first went to Costco to check its monitor supply.  We suspected we could find them in the pharmacy.  And we did.  But we almost missed them.

If the photograph is not clear, the blood pressure monitors are on the shelf below a full line of dog health products.  The diabetes testing equipment is behind the pharmacist counter, book-ended by bags of dog chews.

The line between pets and people has been terminally breached.  I will know the humans have lost when dogs can purchase home drug tests to monitor the behavior of their owners.