Cast Iron Pan & Walmart
Over the Weekend I had to question what year we were in… Here’s the story…
Saturday we wound up in Pawhuska, Oklahoma at The Pioneer Woman’s places… (the Merc, her new store, and of course the Lodge where she films her show). You are invited to the Lodge on the days that it is open, you just have to get a ticket at the Merc. We wanted to eat at the Merc, but we had to put our name on the list. It was a 2 1/2-3 hour wait to get in and we arrived at 10:45 a.m. We got our ticket to the Lodge and the guy told us we had plenty of time to go to the Lodge and come back. We were like 68 on the list and at about 15 you needed to head back this way. Cool.
When we got to the Lodge, we were greeted when we walked in the door. The lady asked where we were from (she laughed at my answer, another story for another day). Then she told us that Ree encouraged people to open doors, open drawers, hold items, whatever. In the prep kitchen, I fell in love with a cast-iron skillet that was sitting on the stove. We turned it over and it was hers. We decided she probably had it in one of her 2 stores so we’d look when we got back to town.
When we got back to town however this pan WAS. NOT. in the store. Sigh! So I jumped online looking. I found it on Mercari for $50. Someone was selling a brand new with all the original packaging. We decided that $50 wasn’t bad for a cast-iron pan (I’ve priced a lot of them, even here lately). But I kept digging and found it on Walmart’s website for $19.99 (original price). So I started checking availability at Walmart stores close to home. There was one in the next town over… but it said limited availability. That could mean 1 or 5 or 10 truthfully. I hit my mom up to see if she was going to town… Nope. So I started looking at Walmart stores on our way home. We have over a 2-hour drive after all.
Found one in Bartlesville. It also said limited availability. We decided to go ahead and stop there and get one in case the store at home sold out before we could get there. I wanted this pan… obviously. Lol.
We get to Bartlesville Walmart, walk up and there are 2 groups of people ahead of us standing on the 6-foot markers waiting to get in the store just like last March when everything shut down. We started asking what was going on as did everyone who walked up. We were all confused. I only stayed because I couldn’t ship that pan home and I wanted that pan, obviously.
The Walmart employees finally said there were too many people in the store and they had to limit the number of people going in. We were all like… oooookkkkkkaaaaaayyyyyy…. Then we watched the other 2 entrances and they let all their people in and no one was standing anymore. So our side of the entrance started getting annoyed. I mean I was annoyed but I kept quiet… others were more vocal. In the time we stood there at least 20 people came out and none of us were allowed to go in. There were 4 people in front of me (1 family). Finally, a lady in charge came up and was like, you record it as one goes out, then one can go in, etc. Now 3 Walmart employees are almost arguing about this, meanwhile, another 5-8 people exited the store. Finally, the guy threw his hands in the air and said, all of you go in.
Well okay then.
So I went in, located my pan rather quickly, looked for 1 more item in that area, and was ready to head out. I went walking down the main aisle and a guy stopped me asking where I found the pan. I gave him a rough idea and he told his family to make sure they went down that aisle. When they asked why, he said, she found the pioneer woman pan. I smiled and moved on about my business (although he couldn’t see me smile, mask and all…).
And that my friends is why I questioned what year we were living in…
Oh and the pan… Love it. I’ve used it twice since Saturday. Today is Wednesday.
