The Rant: Walmart anti-bliss, Angel Hernandez lunacy, and why Doug Armstrong stood pat

Let's get into another round of whatever pops into my head gets said.

Walmart has sucked for years. It’s the fourth starter who can’t even produce four innings of solid work. If you want a glimpse of the human species in perpetual motion, grab a cart and welcome yourself to Walmart, home of chaos.

I’d like to think Alex Garland came up with the idea for his upcoming grounded “horror” film called Civil War while shopping at a Walmart. It makes sense. Garland’s April flick centers around a legit civil war breaking out between united parts of the country against the government and their own brand of protection. More shocking and visceral than most previews, it hits too close to home. Surely, Garland did all of his research while shopping for detergent, facewash, and fish bait.

These days, security at Walmart is more stiff than the poor customer service. Neutrogena products are being locked behind a pane of glass along with face wipes and other skin washes. Ladies and gentlemen, these are washables. Before people tell me it’s for expensive stuff, the thing I want is only $7. Let’s not build a wall around Wally World to keep the face wash safe.

Asking an employee for a hand is like asking Yadier Molina to run fast to first base: not next to impossible, but getting close. Two people with different ages and backgrounds each gave me the coldest of shoulders, treating my request for a key to the lock guarding follicle police like I was asking for half his paycheck and everything in his freezer. I eventually bought my hot-to-trot dryer sheets, k-cups, cat litter, and other assorted goods without my Neutrogena face wash.

Before the roasty jokes come in, it’s a very good cleanser for someone who touches his face too much and gets dirt all over it on the job. Around eight years ago, I was getting those nasty bumps, pimples, and general irritation. It was a late night walk to Walmart in Arkansas that unlocked the key to this not-so-expensive-back-then wash, and I’ve bought it ever since.

Can it be purchased online? Yes.

Did I know it wouldn’t cost an arm, leg, and half of my bag of Skittles? No clue could be had in my head, friends.

Suffice to say, Wally and I are finished… outside of their too-damn-good Great Value k-cups. Sometimes, the cheap stuff works. Most of the time, customer service shouldn’t be so hard to get. They’re getting paid, right? There are times on my job where I’d like to invoke a few George Carlin naughty words, but I don’t because paychecks are good and keep the wife happy. On occasion, I could go into a Glengarry-type rant about an aspect of the day job that kicks my ass. It affects us all, no matter where we work.

But I push it down, like William Burr once told me on Netflix. Push it down, act like you have answers, and find me the damn key to that Neutrogena vault of facial goods.

Let’s keep going as my wife tends to three dogs outside my office window. From where I write at home, my view shoots a diagonal line straight across our above ground pool. It’s the Clark Griswold night dream over the pool that would eventually be put in his backyard. I can see a lot, including my wife’s gorgeous petite self cleaning rocks off the pavement while I pound away at the keys.

Spring training lives right next to meaningless when it comes to tracking outcomes and thinking of these exhibition warm-ups for a month nonsense as anything other than a long stretch. It’s definitely not a place to toss starting pitchers who are trying to get work in. Lance Lynn met the unfortunate, childlike wrath of veteran *OUCH* umpire Angel Hernandez this week. If there was ever a real reason to keep the angels in the outfield, Hernandez would be an ideal candidate. Let him toss pushy beer vendors or something.

Lynn probably said the golden words, but definitely not enough to get tossed from an exhibition. It was so bad, Hernandez even tossed Lynn again later on when the pitcher was trying to get reps in the bullpen. The opposing team was laughing, and definitely not at the departing Cardinal starter. Every year Major League Baseball lets Hernandez continue to make an emphatic endorsement for robot umps is a real letdown. Be better, Puppet Manfred.

Jim Rassol-USA TODAY Sports

Doug Armstrong didn’t toss any player off his roster as the trade deadline came and went in the NHL. People who thought Pavel Buchnevich would get dealt were wrong. Ones who thought Colton Parayko could be on the move look even dumber (yours truly). Armstrong decided that the team was shitty enough to not be a playoff threat, but not entirely pond scum enough to start shredding.