People of Walmart, pray tell, where are your pants?

It takes all kinds.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself. I don’t know how else to explain People of Walmart, a new blog devoted to showcasing the under-clad train wrecks found puzzling over Doritos options at supercenters across the nation.

Really what I mean is: It takes all kinds of restraint. It's difficult not to laugh in that pointing, judging, superior manner that I’m so good at. Truly, something’s not right with these folks, and it’s not nice to mock the disenfranchised.

When a grown man is casually yet confidently wearing a garbage bag as a skirt while shopping for Gladware in the nation’s No. 1 discount store, it’s a sign there may be problems at home.

Similarly, when a senior citizen dons stripper heels and a very low-cut spaghetti strap dress to go browsing for Rollbacks, it means one can never be too old to have daddy issues.

And let us not speculate what it means when a 300-pound woman decides it’s probably OK to run her errands whilst wearing only some yellow panties and a very tight Cookie Monster-blue shirt. (Though, most likely, it means, “Me not happy. Me want cookies.”)

People of Walmart does more than just catalog the hastily taken cell-phone-camera shots of the nation’s uncovered underbelly. It tells each of us where we stand as individuals. Forget the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: You are either the kind of person who is in the People of Walmart pictures (IPWP) or the kind of person who is horrified by the People of Walmart pictures (HPWP).

No more hand-wringing over your personality and career plans. Just keep an eye on that Web site, and you will have all the answers you need in life. “Am I on the site? No? Phew. Free to be an engineer now.” or “Oh God! That’s me! Well, that answers the ‘Will I be stuck in a dead-end marriage to an unemployed alcoholic who invites his friends over to shoot at the car in our yard?’ question.”

It makes me sad that this entire time we’ve been arguing about health care reform when, apparently, what we really need as a nation is better access to showers, scrub brushes and friends who will tell us the truth when we ask, “Does this size 4 mini-dress look flattering on my size 20 frame and should I wear it to Walmart?”

Socialized medicine? No. No. No. We need socialized mirrors! Socialized dignity! And socialized pants!

(Apparently. I mean, I hate to judge the poor and confused. If there were an emoticon for reluctant middle-class nose-wrinkling, I’d use that here instead. Also, I would use the emoticon for flirtatious winking because that’s how I do it.)

Really, though — and let’s just face this — it doesn’t take all kinds of people to make the world go ’round. It does, however, take underwear (worn “under” the clothes, if at all possible). It takes hairbrushes (used on the head, preferably). It takes wearing shirts that are free of cuss words and racist, xenophobic instructions. It takes driving cars that don’t have trolls Super Glued to the hood. And it takes knowing just how much camo is needed to truly go unnoticed and not end up on a Web site that’s meant to mock you.

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