On December 10, 2024, after leaving the dentist in Tallahassee, Florida at 4:07 PM following a routine visit, I never anticipated that, several hours later, after years of resignation or perhaps even apathy, I’d draw the proverbial line in the sand at the Walmart in Thomasville, Georgia.

My intentions were mundane. After the dentist, visit either Bass Pro or Academy Sports in Tallahassee, both about six minutes away, to buy a large box of .22 long-rifle bullets. My wife wanted to start pistol lessons with her new Beretta Bobcat. And while shopping for the .22s, I’d check out prices on shotgun shells – in particular 12-gauge, 1⅛-ounce, #8s, which is the only load I shoot simply because anything smaller undermines my confidence as an average recreational clays shooter. Call me crazy, or insecure, perhaps superstitious, but what can I tell you? 

First stop was Bass Pro on Lagniappe Way in Fallschase Village Center. While Fallschase Village may evoke a hamlet of quaint shoppes owned by aproned artisans hand-crafting scented candles, doilies, teddy bears and chocolate truffles, in fact the shopping center is a sprawling retail magnet anchored by the Bass Pro, Costco and a Walmart Supercenter.

Heading straight for the ammo section in the Bass Pro, there were plenty of small boxes of .22s but no long rifles at all. And the shotgun-shell shelves showed vast stretches of white space between random boxes of high-priced loads. 

Academy Sports did have a box of 800 Federal .22 long rifle bullets, although the shotgun-shell shelves were sad and largely empty, except for a random clays load of 25 starting at nearly $12.00. Even if I could find 12-gauge, 1⅛-ounce, #8s (frequently out-stocked by 1-ounce or 1⅛-ounce 7½ shells), I simply refused to pay that much; $10.00 was my limit.

The heck with it, I figured, since I had already planned to visit the Thomasville Walmart later that evening for household staples.

The Walmart in Thomasville, Georgia.

After leaving the Tallahassee suburbs, the drive home south to Thomasville is a straight shot along bucolic four-lane Route 319, also known as Plantation Parkway, that cuts through the pastoral quail plantations of the fabled Red Hills Region of North Florida and South Georgia.

At home, I walked the dog, threw a tuna steak in the cast-iron skillet with a side salad, then grabbed the long shopping list before the quick drive to Walmart. 

Inside the store, we all have our shopping routine. I turn left to the pharmacy and beauty aids then walk straight back past hardware to sporting goods where I always take a detour to shotgun shells to check on prices. The Walmart generally locks up the shells with other ammo in a glass display case. But that night, as though to celebrate Christmas, there stood an end-cap display six shelves high of red Federal four-pack shotgun shells topped by a big sign: $37.66 – or according to my iPhone calculator $9.41½ cents per box. Heck yeah!

So lets see, there were Federal 1-ounce #7½, 1⅛-ounce #7½, 1-ounce #8, and a bunch of 20-gauge shells. I must have scoured that end-cap display three times until finally acknowledging the hard truth: no 1⅛-ounce #8. But behind me, though, was a locked glass display case holding three four-packs of Winchester Universal Game-Target shells packing a payload of 1⅛-ounce #8 pellets also at $37.66. And, as expected, no sporting goods sales clerk in sight, the only person aside from the manager who would have the key to the case. 

The Federal shotgun-shell end-cap display at Walmart.

Most of us know the three choices of the Walmart sporting-good section when it comes to buying ammo: 1) press the button on the counter to summon a sales clerk, 2) accept yet one more disappointment in life and push your sad shopping cart across the store to buy a Mega-Pack of toilet paper, or 3) go full-on gladiator and take up the challenge.

Maybe it was going to the dentist that afternoon, where you’re laying back, looking up at X-rays of your teeth in a direct confrontation of your mortality, completely vulnerable to a small woman working sharp instruments in the soft tissue of your mouth, that finally pushed me over the edge. No mas – tonight, come hell or high water, I’m getting that ammo in the case.

Your index finger presses the oversize white button, a synthesized voice reassures you that, in fact, someone will be with your shortly; and despite a long history of disillusion, letdown and cynicism you still get a jolt of hope that finally, tonight, the person with the key will respond momentarily, bright-eyed and cheery, wearing a Santa hat, and promptly unlock the cabinet for you to retrieve the treasure inside. 

Of course, getting an actual response to the sales-clerk button in sporting goods is something like playing that old Magic 8-Ball fortune teller revealing your future from its murky depths: It is certain, Don’t count on it, Ask again later, Very doubtful, Yes definitely, My sources say no (and 14 other variations on hope, doubt and tragedy that can wreak havoc on your psyche, especially after throwing back shots of cheap tequila).

Press the button, wait a couple of minutes, look up and down the aisles for a sales clerk who you hope has the key, then repeat. After the third failed attempt, I’d usually head to groceries and continue down the shopping list, all the while a little gremlin in my head scolding me for giving up, while rationalizing the defeat with the usual excuses: I’m too busy to wait around, who cares anyway, I didn’t really want it – until you leave the store, pushing your loaded cart with the wonky front wheels across the parking lot, a man diminished with yet another teeny wound of defeat inflicted by Big Retail.

Pushing the cart down to the front of the store, I asked the two women behind the customer-service counter if someone could help me get ammo from the locked case. They consulted each other and told me Mr. Johnson was the man with the key. Mr. Johnson was promptly paged to meet me in sporting goods.

I rushed back to sporting goods, believing victory was at hand. Several minutes later, Mr. Johnson had not appeared. I hit the large, white button again with extreme conviction. 

I knew of an area behind the electronics department, near the restrooms, where employees tended to congregate. Gripping the shopping cart handle, I raced there. No one to be seen. I saw a woman working the electronics section. “Have you seen Mr. Johnson?” Of course not, but she did offer to find someone to help me.

Returning completely across the store to customer service I told the woman Mr. Johnson was a no-show. She paged him again. Hustling to sporting goods, I waited for Mr. Johnson – eyeballing the aisles for him. A young guy with dread locks and a nose ring pulling a pallet of inventory was starting to unload near me.

“Have to seen Mr. Johnson?” He shook his head no.

“What does he look like?” He shrugged. “He’s an old guy.”

Yeah, compared to you everyone is old, I thought.

I received a text from my wife: Have you been kidnapped? Reply: No, trying to buy ammo at Walmart.

I pushed the shopping cart to electronics. By now, the woman was helping another customer, but glanced at me. “Have you seen Mr. Johnson?” She shook her head no.

Reversing course to sporting goods, I past a woman pulling a pallet of inventory. “Have you seen Mr. Johnson.” She apologized, no.

In sporting goods, I tried the button again. My buddy Noah, who works at South Georgia Outdoors in Cairo, the guy who handled the transaction for my wife’s Beretta Bobcat, happened by. We talked about shotguns until he said “My wife is waiting for me.”

I was staring into the locked display case at the three four-packs of Winchester Universal Game-Target loads, thinking: There must be a way to solve this problem.

The Winchester shotgun shells on the bench at the author’s home.

That’s when a store manager approached. “Sorry for the delay,” he said with a friendly smile,  producing a ring of keys. He opened the case. I pointed. “Those three.”

He carried the four-packs to the sporting-goods cash register. “Thank you,” I said. 

He asked for ID, and for some reason I mentioned that I’d been in Thomasville for nine years, originally from New York City. He was double-bagging the boxes of Winchesters and said he was from Michigan. “I did some woodcock and grouse hunting in the Upper Peninsula.”

After paying, he said “Happy holidays.”

“Same to you.”

I continued through the store, checking off items on the shopping list feeling good that I scored another small victory.

Irwin Greenstein is the Publisher of Shotgun Life. You can contact him on the Shotgun Life Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/shotgunlife

Irwin Greenstein

Irwin Greenstein is Publisher of Shotgun Life. Please send your comments to letters@shotgunlife.com.

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