Back in our day we remember grocery stores and supermarkets were small, neighborhood
stores- but today they've become mega stores that sell everything from potatoes to ipods
and anything in between.
Today's grocery stores are so big, you could practically live in one- and that's when one
of our staff members got the idea: what if you did in fact live in one?
Sure, we could've done some research and found out if anyone had ever attempted to do that,
sort of like our episode where a man lives in the airport for 19 years.
But we had an even more brilliant idea- let's put our very own challenge guy on the job
and force him, I mean challenge him, to live in a grocery store for a full day!
Can he do it?
Can you actually spend a full day in a grocery store and not get caught?
What would you do all day?
Where would you sleep?
We didn't know the answer to any of these questions, and thus set your favorite lab
rat on the job to find out for us!
Hour Zero: I imagine that someday far in the future I'll be an old man, probably being
taken care of by a cyborg nurse while my grandkids ask me to tell them about what I used to do
for work back before all the polar bears died out and the ice caps melted.
On that day I'll have to look my dear, sweet grandchildren in the eye and say to them,
“I once spent a full day in a grocery store and tried not to get kicked out.”
Boy, what a day to look forward to.
Alright, so in comparison this challenge should be pretty easy- at least there's no chance
of wild bears eating me or anything truly weird.
I just have to basically bum a full day inside a grocery store and not get kicked out for
trespassing.
I feel like somebody in the Infographics office was watching the old Dawn of the Dead and
thought to themselves, hey what if you had to live in a mall in the real world?
But no, that would be too easy, so they decided to make it a grocery store instead.
Obviously I'll have to target a store that stays open twenty four hours, because I really
don't feel like committing an even bigger crime than trespassing- which I imagine is
exactly what will happen once employees figure out that I'm not there to shop.
Thankfully there's no shortage of stores in Los Angeles that stay open all night, although
I do foresee problems with remaining undetected during the late night hours when there's few
if any people actually in the store.
I'm going to have to plan this one out carefully.
So I first had to scout out stores, and luckily found a Walmart that's open twenty-four hours
and not too terribly far away.
The thing about LA is that there's like I think maybe five Walmarts in the entire city,
and none of them are really 'in' the city itself but rather on the outskirts.
Angelenos really don't like Walmart at all, and I mean honestly, who can blame them?
They're a horrible soulless corporation that exploits its workers and freeloads on the
government by paying wages so low their workers have to apply for government benefits to make
up the shortfall.
Walmart is literally leeching on the American taxpayer, and also for some reason people
don't feel the need to dress like human beings when they go to walmart.
There's a reason the term 'walmart people' exists, sort of like the term 'florida man'.
Yeah, Walmart is basically the Florida of stores.
It's the T-mobile of stores.
The one good thing about Walmart is that it's big enough to hopefully get lost in, or at
least stay out of sight for hours on end.
However to help me stay incognito and not be spotted so easily, I'm going to make sure
I routinely change my clothes.
That's an old security infiltration technique, when you're scoping out the security on a
public location, you want to routinely change your outfit- even just changing the color
of your hat and jacket is enough to help you blend in with the crowd and keep security
from remembering you.
Obviously I can't pack a bag of clothes, so I'll be wearing a reversible windbreaker which
is black on the outside and red on the inside.
I also have a hat I can stuff in a pocket to put on and take off throughout my stay,
but to keep my looks fluid I'm having the girlfriend meet up with me at hour twelve
inside the store and bring me a complete outfit change.
Figure I can sneak off to the bathroom and change there no problem.
The key here is to continuously change my appearance so I don't become familiar to any
of the staff.
For food and drink I figure I'll just buy something in the store- which presents a big
problem.
When you're conducting a covert security survey on a site, you definitely never want to come
in direct contact with the security or staff on the site.
You should be part of the faceless crowd.
But here, I'm going to have to hit a checkout counter and make close-range face-to-face
contact with at least one employee each time.
I'll have to be strategic, and try to time my meals with shift changes so that I hit
a cashier right before he or she leaves their shift.
As far as resting, well I don't know to be honest.
If I can find a nook somewhere it would definitely not be the first time I had to squeeze into
a tight place and hide while taking a quick nap, but if I have to stay up the entire time,
well also won't be the first time I had to be alert for a day straight.
All in all this is shaping up to be a very weird challenge, but I always enjoyed confounding
security personnel in order to highlight vulnerabilities when I worked as a consultant, so it might
be a bit fun and a chance to polish off an old skill set.
I'll check in at my end point, wish me luck!
Hour 22: Alright, I got busted.
I couldn't quite make it the full twenty four hours and that really bothers me, but I got
damn close.
Let me explain.
So I called the Walmart I went to before actually arriving and pretended to be interested in
a job there.
That gave me the opportunity to ask about their shifts and get a schedule of when shift
changes happen.
The first rule of infiltrating a facility is to gather as much intel as possible beforehand,
and you'd be surprised just how much people are willing to give you over the phone.
With shift changes at 0600, 1400, and 2200 hours- or six am, two pm, and ten pm for you
civvies out there- I decided to start my squatting at 5:30 in the morning.
That gave me a half hour to recon the place, which would be my most dangerous phase because
I'd be moving around a lot and getting spotted by the entire staff.
With only a half hour left in their shift though, the employees were tired- especially
since it was an overnight shift- and it's completely believable that someone would wander
around for a half hour in a big Walmart.
Once the new shift came on I had a pretty good layout of the store, and even identified
places I could 'hide out' and not be seen very much by the employees.
Luckily Walmarts are pretty massive stores, though boredom was going to be a real big
issue.
I'd brought my phone of course, and even managed to stuff a paperback into my jacket pocket,
but I knew it was going to be tough to not be bored to tears.
One unexpected perk is that this Walmart had an attached cafeteria of sorts.
It was small, and served typical cafeteria stuff: burgers, pizza, fries, etc., but it
meant that I could avoid the checkouts when I bought food and water and thus avoid the
actual store employees.
The people at the registers would often leave the registers to wander around the store,
and I did my best to avoid them as much as possible.
I spent the first part of my day in electronics, though I quickly had to leave because I realized
that was a terrible choice.
Electronics is not a section you can linger in without being approached by a staff member
asking if they can help you with anything, and I realized it was exposing me way too
much.
I made my way over to the greeting card section instead to lay low, and spent an hour and
a half reading funny greeting cards.
Let's just say that it clearly doesn't take much talent to write greeting cards.
At around 11 am I started feeling a bit hungry, so I made my way to the small cafeteria and
ordered some food.
This was the perfect place to kick back for a while, and I figured as long as I returned
and kept ordering stuff, nobody would want to kick me out.
So I ate a very, very long lunch, very, very slowly.
First I got the fries, because fries are awesome, and then a half hour later I got the burger,
then a slice of pizza, then some mozzarella sticks, and then about two hours later I had
to stop or I was going to finish this challenge with an extra ten pounds of pure lard.
It did at least give me a chance to read in peace though, most people probably figured
I was just waiting for someone or something, and like I suspected, as long as I kept ordering
stuff sporadically nobody really cared.
Right about that time I had to use the bathroom mighty bad, and let me tell you, there's no
place on earth more horrible than a walmart bathroom.
I initially thought that I could easily sneak a half hour or even an hour in a stall, but
no.
No you cannot spend more than thirty seconds in a filthy Walmart bathroom stall.
If Walmart is a soulless husk of a corporation, then its bathrooms are the fetid, beating
heart of darkness in its shambling corporate corpse.
I headed off to the children's section next, and I spotted two playhouses that they had
set up for kids and parents to check them out.
Perfect, I thought to myself, once midnight hit I could easily slip inside one and it
might be a tight fit, but I'd be out of sight of any employee.
I hit the games and puzzles section next, and I gotta admit it was getting extremely
tedious to read the box of every single board game just to keep myself semi entertained.
I had to dodge employees a few times though- as a rule I limited my exposure to any one
employee to no more than a few seconds of close contact.
If I came close to an employee, I immediately changed locations to as far as possible.
Luckily, most employees are pretty much bound to certain areas of the store, so bouncing
back and forth between them really limited my exposure.
I know for a fact though that at least two employees gave me a doubletake, thanks to
my wardrobe changes I think I threw them off the scent though.
I was getting on to hour twelve though and had thoroughly exhausted my wardrobe options.
Hat on, hat off, hat on but backwards, hat off again.
Jacket on, turned to black side, jacket off, jacket back on turned to red side, jacket
off again.
I needed fresh threads fast, and considered just buying something but the girlfriend showed
up right on time to save the day.
Unfortunately I hadn't specified what to bring me, and on hindsight I really should have-
call that a mistake in pre-op planning.
So she brought me a pair of freaking shorts.
Not only shorts, but like board shorts I only wear to the beach, and which happened to have
big, bright streaks of neon green on the legs.
Pretty much a walking billboard advertisement begging people to 'look at me, look at me!'.
I love my girlfriend with all my heart and all my might, but she would be terrible in
any infiltration, or like a heist movie.
Unless she was the muscle of course, beating up the security and other crooks.
She can be scary in a boxing ring.
At least I had a change of clothes though, new pants, new shirt, a sweatshirt to throw
on top.
Not too terrible, though I decided I'd stash my jeans somewhere and change back into them
after a few hours because these shorts were like wearing a big flashing neon sign begging
people to notice me.
You know, the exact opposite of what you want when you're trying to remain unnoticed in
public.
I let the girlfriend take my old clothes back with her minus the jeans, which I stashed
inside a stack of tires in the auto department.
Then I wandered the actual groceries section, which was a huge mistake because it just made
me hungry again.
I have like no impulse control, and I had to get out of there before I ended up buying
a case of ice cream bars to wolf down somewhere.
Luckily this Walmart had a books section, which was perfect, because if there's any
place you're expected to spend a long time in, it's the book section.
Also I could entertain myself a bit there at least, so I spent a while reading magazines
and random books.
I wish I could tell you that anything exciting happened during my day, but literally nothing
really happened.
Walmart employees don't get paid enough to care I think, and so the few times that someone
did a double-take it was as simple as moving to the other side of the store and laying
low for a few hours.
The electronics department was basically a huge no-go though because those employees
tend to stay put in a relatively small area, while the areas that other employees move
around in are a lot larger.
I started getting really, really tired as night came.
I tried not to look at the time as much as I could though, because nothing makes time
move slower than constantly checking what time it is.
It must've been around eight pm that I started getting really fatigued- my day was just so
damn boring and uneventful.
I knew I couldn't grab a nap in the cafeteria because that's the first place employees would
look for homeless people or transients, and nothing screams either more than nodding off
for a half hour or more.
I just couldn't risk drawing the attention, and to avoid any legal trouble the rules of
the challenge stated that if I was ever asked to leave, I had to.
Guess Infographics didn't feel like bailing me out of jail.
I mean, not that I wanted to go in the first place...
I found a solution to my fatigue problem though, and it was pretty sweet if I say so myself.
This Walmart had a garden center which closed off early, because I guess there's no need
to sell plants and fertilizer twenty four hours.
The area was roped off and the lights were off, so it was pretty simple to slip past
the rope and find a quiet spot to lay low.
I managed to find an area behind piles of gardening dirt and fertilizer, and after moving
the piles of sacks a little bit, I built a nice little walled off area I could lay down
in.
I'm not sure when I nodded off, but when I checked the time it was one thirty in the
morning and I got awoken by the roar of a floor polisher being turned on.
The cleaning crew must have been working their way across the store and finally made it to
the garden center.
I stupidly had forgotten about cleaning crew, and I briefly thought about staying put.
If the crew was lazy enough, they probably wouldn't bother to move the bags back into
their proper place, but I couldn't chance it.
Instead I kept an eagle eye from behind my barricades and snuck out when the cleaner's
back was turned to me.
Then it was a whole process of slowly making my way back to the main store by ducking behind
displays and giant pots and literally anything I could fit behind while the two cleaning
people worked the floor.
Eventually I slipped out, but the store was so empty that I knew I couldn't just randomly
wander the store anymore.
I needed to get to my sanctuary I had picked out during the day time- I had to get to the
toys section and the plastic play houses out on display.
I took the long way through the back of the store to avoid being seen as much as possible,
and halfway there I made sure to find a camera blind spot and hide out there for a while.
The girlfriend had brought me a reversible sweatshirt and so I ripped it off and turned
it inside out, then after five minutes I walked out with my brand new look.
I was banking on the fact that no bored security guard would stare at his monitor screen for
five whole minutes waiting to see when I would reappear.
With new colors on, a tired guard would likely assume I was a different person.
Never underestimate the laziness and complacency of security.
I finally made it to the toys section, and luckily the aisles were really tall here and
the play houses well out of sight of cameras.
I crawled inside a plastic play house and shut the window shutters.
It was a tight fit and if I moved around I'd shake the whole thing, but I was hidden at
least.
I had to fight not to laugh at the ridiculousness of my situation.
Seriously, this is what I get paid to do.
I meant to stay alert for the final home stretch, but I dozed off inadvertently at some point.
I blame the fatty, greasy food I'd had all day, though it was really bad form on my behalf-
I'm definitely losing my edge.
I got woken up to a Walmart employee sticking her head inside the toy house's window and
looking very, very surprised.
She asked me what in the world I was doing there, and well, I just told her the truth:
I'm trying to stay in your store for twenty four hours straight.
“Is this some crazy internet thing?!”, she asked.
Yes ma'am, this was definitely some crazy internet thing.
Is this how ridiculous we've gotten on the internet?
That people aren't even all that surprised anymore to discover someone trying to live
in their store for a day straight?
I guess I'm definitely part of the problem here, I mean I've spent over a year now doing
crazy challenges for you, the internet.
So that was my twenty four hours- or twenty two rather.
I got busted sleeping in a child's playhouse and asked to leave the store, and because
I had swapped pants twice, I totally forgot my jeans back in a stack of tires in the automobile
department.
I could have definitely made it twenty four hours if I wasn't as concerned with... legal
repercussions.
I mean, realistically I would've snuck into the employees area a long time ago and simply
hid out amongst all the pallets and crates back there- I worked in a grocery store when
I was 16 and I know there's a ton of places to hide in a big store like this.
But, you know, I didn't really want to potentially make this into a whole legal thing and have
my next challenge be, spend thirty days in jail for trespassing!
There you go internet, I did another crazy internet thing for your sake.
What did I learn?
Nothing, other than the depths of lonely boredom and that store security is incredibly complacent
and overall pretty terrible at their job but that's not too big a surprise.
Like most security they're just there to act as a visual deterrent, not actually, you know,
secure anything.
Now, won't you guys think up a more comfortable, relaxing challenge?
Like get a massage for twenty four hours, or live with a hot tub installed in your house
for thirty days!
I believe in you guys, after all it was the hundreds of comments from you that got me
sent to Hawaii last year!
This time, I promise to take pics.
How would you spend twenty four hours locked up in a grocery store?
What crazy challenge should our resident lab rat take on next?!
Let us know in the comments and on our website, and while you're at it, don't forget to like,
share, and subscribe for more great challenges!
Now we challenge you to click on this link here and keep the watch party going, or maybe
you'd rather watch this great video instead?
Either way, you can't lose!