It’s February. Do you know what that means?
If your answer is, “It’s time to get out the squirt guns and beach toys,” you just might work for Walmart!
On a recent trip to said retail store, I was met with a fairly balanced variety of heart-shaped gifts and H2O drenching weaponry.
To their credit, while the temperature outside is in the 30s, a warm heart could use some cooling. measures. A good ol’ water fight could very well do the trick. And with the ability to purchase 42 different varieties of squirt guns, I’m thinking who needs a pillow fight to sweeten the mood when you can spray your loved one with water that could turn to ice in a matter of seconds?
Ah, and it isn’t just heart-shaped gifts and water weapons that are dotting the shelves this month, but freshly clipped roses and backyard toys to enjoy them with. What couple doesn’t celebrate the most romantic day of the year with a few fun trips down the Slip ‘N’ Slide? February is a great time for a pool party and some beach towels, right?
Valentine’s Day isn’t the only fun-filled February holiday that can be celebrated with a spray in the face of the life-sustaining substance. There’s no denying that the perfect President’s Day activity is a big water fight to decide who the best president was, with Super Soakers for Team George Washington and water balloons for Team Abraham Lincoln.
In my view, retailers are so worried about staying ahead, that sometimes they get a little too far ahead. Does anybody ever really think, “Hey, I might go to the lake on Memorial Day, so I’d better be sure to load up on beach supplies the first week of February?”
The problem is, in order to make room for these far-flung future items that nobody needs yet, the stores clear the shelves of things you might actually want or need right now. Have you ever tried to buy a winter coat in the middle of winter? Good luck. If you need a coat in February, you better have a time machine that can take you back to October, because that’s when they stopped selling winter coats.
Gloves, mittens, scarves, and snow shovels: all these things are extremely hard to find in a store in February. Why is that? Didn’t they see that some rodent in Pennsylvania said we’re going to have six more weeks of winter? What I need right now is snow melt, not beach towels! Heaven forbid if
your windshield ice scraper breaks and you need to get a new one. You’re just out of luck.
There’s not much we can do about it. We’d better just go ahead and get our summer supply of squirt guns and beach toys now, because by the time March rolls in they’ll all be replaced with the “Back to School” supplies.
