True Confessions of an Accidental Walmart Model

It’s hard to see yourself. At least it’s hard for me to see myself. The self-loathing, though. That comes easily.

Here’s what it’s like to be inside my head on any given day.

It’s a bizarre feeling to identify with arguably the greatest villain in all of children’s literature.

• 7:00 a.m. It’s a beautiful morning, Norm. Let’s make this day one for the hall of fame.

• 7:03 a.m. Why is there a hair in my ear? There wasn’t a hair in my ear yesterday.

• 7:20 a.m. All right, hair plucked. Not a hall of fame day, but here we go.

• 7:25 a.m. Becky is awake. I’ll angle my ear away from her so that she doesn’t realize she’s basically married to a bucket of smashed crabs.

• 7:26 a.m. Why is she looking at me funny? She probably notices the empty follicle of the plucked ear hair. She definitely regrets marrying me.

• 7:30 a.m. What’s going on with my eyebrows? I look like a Sesame Street character, like one of Bert and Ernie’s second cousins. Gees, you could erase a chalkboard with these eyebrows. What evolutionary purpose could eyebrows possibly serve? Protection? I’m pretty sure if I shaved my eyebrows, I could fit every Buddhist monk on the planet for a toupée.

A candid shot of how my brain feels about my eyebrows.

• 7:31 a.m. Rain in the forecast. Maybe if I get struck by lightning, my ear hair will stop growing? I’m probably not that lucky.

• 7:32 a.m. Why is my head so big? I bet my ears started growing hair to detract from the size of my outrageous head. They became sentient and realized that my giant cranium would blot out the sun and compromise the growth of foliage in my area code. I can do all the cardio and lift all the weights, but this head will remain intergalactic in its circumference.

• 7:35 a.m. Man, I’m getting fat. Love handles? More like suitcase handles. If I keep plumping up at this clip, they’ll be more like You’re-gonna-die-alone handles.

• 7:36 a.m. That guy on Facebook has cool hair. Why does he get cool hair? Fuck that guy. I hope he gets diarrhea.

• 7:40 a.m. I shouldn’t have made a joke yesterday about that funny-looking baby. That mom didn’t think it was funny. She’s definitely going to tell her husband, and he’s going to come after me like he’s an anti-hero in some neo-Western Clint Eastwood flick.

• 7:41 a.m. That baby will appreciate the joke later. Reality is bitter, but necessary.

• 7:45 a.m. *seeing myself in the reflection of my driver's side window* Do I really walk like that? Why did my stupid ancestors not weed this pigeon-toed gait from the gene pool? Sure, Michael Jordan is slightly pigeon-toed, but I am decidedly not a 6’6” elite basketball player. The injustice of this miserable world is boundless.

• 7:46 a.m. *seeing myself in the rear view mirror* Is that another god damn hair in my ear?

Like most things for me, I didn’t understand the problematic nature of these thoughts until I started writing them down. And you should know, dear readers, that these thoughts have been carefully curated to provide you with a little schadenfreude. The actual court transcripts are much more mean spirited and critical.

Recently, however, I was reminded of an experience from my teenaged days. This experience—like the endless bounty of love I receive from my wife and plenty of other wonderful people—quiets the voice of the inner demon.

This is what unconditional love looks like.

My first job was at McDonald’s. Not any McDonald’s, though. I worked at the McDonald’s inside of Walmart. One day while running the cash register, I took the order of a mother and her teenaged daughter. In between each item ordered, they whispered and giggled with each other, and it felt like I was stuck in the middle of an SNL sketch.

Even after I made them change and slapped their receipt on the counter, they just stood there, giggling and whispering. Finally, I said, “Um, did you need anything else?”

“Yes,” the mother said. “We got a question.”

“Okay.”

“You a model?”

“What?”

“Are you a model? Like a fashion model?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I hate taking pictures.” I held up my hand to emphasize the critical levels. “Hitler. Mosquitoes. Picture taking, in that order.”

“Quit teasin’. You’re for sure a model.”

“I just took your order for a Filet-O-Fish. Models probably don’t buy, sell, or get anywhere near a Filet-O-Fish.”

“Probably?”

“I’m not a model.”

“You look like a model.”

“Well… that’s nice of you to say, I guess…”

“Do you want to take my daughter on a date?”

“Mom! Shut up!”

“Baby, he’s a Walmart model. This is a good opportunity for you.”

I don’t know that I’d ever been described as a good opportunity.

“Um, I have a girlfriend.”

“Lucky girl to be dating a model, especially a Walmart model.” Note: I’m pretty sure this exact sentiment had neither been expressed before nor after this moment in human history.

“Again, I’m not a model. For Walmart or anybody.”

“Keep playing coy, hot stuff. It’s cute.”

Then the mother and her daughter walked away, giggling and whispering all the while. After I finished eight hours of slinging Filets-O-Fish and Chicken McNuggets, I left the McDonald’s inside of Walmart and made for the exit, just past the Walmart Photo Center where everything snapped into focus.

Earlier that month, a couple weeks before I started my McDonald’s-at-Walmart career, I went to prom. My mom rented me a tux, which was a big ask because money was tight for us. My school offered senior pictures, but they were expensive, so my mom sent me to the Walmart Photo Center with a coupon to get discounted 5x7s and wallets.

Well, Walmart thought enough of my face to slap it on a 36X24 print, frame it, and hang it in the Walmart Photo Center. They didn’t ask me. I signed no release. Nothing. I guess they just thought my face could move some Walmart products and services.

Like it or not, this is what peak performance looks like from Walmart’s point of view.

As it turns out, this little memory is a light for dark days. I get stuck in the quicksand quite a bit, lost in the mire and muck of too much insecurity and too little gratitude. For some existentially horseshit reason, it’s easy for me to count, but it’s difficult for me to count my blessings. Writing stuff like this is a way of counting blessings, I suppose. In this memory, the blessing is this: some Filet-O-Fish-eating mother and daughter out there look at me and see a Walmart model instead of what I normally see. Not too shabby. I mean, it’s not as sophisticated as, say, a Costco model, but we all have our crosses to bear.

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Thanks for reading! If this little recollection made you laugh, consider reading some of my other stories, like my dark crime comedy novella, Dig.

For fans of the Coen Brothers, Martin McDonagh, dark comedy, and/or general shenanigans.

Or you might peruse one of these barnburners from the All Kinds of Funny archives

• Manslaughter, Santa Claus, and a Hatchet: A whimsical attempt to create my own holiday tradition ends in utter disarray.

• Bloody Towels: An exploration of gratitude and an image that conjures the climax of Carrie—ya know, standard family vacation fare.

• Are you there, Judy Blume? It's me, Norm.: The birds-and-the-bees talk goes sideways thanks to Judy Blume. Yes, that Judy Blume.

• A Spicy Alternative to Antidepressants: My favorite thing I’ve written on this Substack. And my favorite life lesson of the last few years.