Wally World

In honor of my experience in attempting to purchase a bike for Katherine last weekend:

10 Reasons why I hate Wal-Mart

1. 24 Registers and 4 open (on a good day). It takes me longer to check out than it did to get the items I needed. It is never a quick trip in and out of that place. Plan to lose at least an hour of your life.
2. Inevitably the items that I need are on the opposite end of the store from one another resulting in me trucking back and forth, usually multiple times if I’m not on top of my game that particular day.
3. No matter what shopping cart I grab, it’s got a wobbly wheel, a wheel that’s no longer round or makes a horrible noise that alerts everyone in the store when I’m coming their way. I’ve concluded that they’re all bad.
4. Odds are 50/50 that they’ll actually have the item that you’re looking for. It may be a Super Center but their selection is a little to be desired. Usually, their out of stock of the particular item I’m looking for, they don’t sell the particular brand I’m looking for, or they don’t sell the particular variety of the brand I’m looking for either. Either way I walk out empty handed.
5. And if they do have the item I’m looking for, I still may walk out without it because I need to find it first. If it’s a small, obscure item that you don’t buy very often, forget it. Then, once I find it, I need to locate its price because it’s usually put back in the wrong spot and heaven forbid they spend the time to put price tags on the actual items. This means locating one of those price scanner things in the store that actually works. I think I went to three one time before I was successful.
6. The stuff in there is cheap because, well, it’s cheap. They might have a big US flag hanging at the front entrance to appease a particular segment of our population but I would bet money on the chance that the vast majority of the goods sold there are made anywhere else but.
7. Not only it is cheap, the place just looks dirty. Whoever thought beige paint on cinderblock would make a store look nice and inviting needs to take a hard look at reality. You can tell that every inch of that store was built to save a penny…not that their using all the money their saving on oh, employee salaries or anything.
8. Speaking of employees, boy, there’s a happy bunch. Who can blame them really with all the stories you hear about how well they have it. But seriously can’t you even just pretend like you’re interested in helping me? That is, when I can find you of to help. It’s not like I want to be there either.
9. Is there anywhere else can you go where teeth and basic grooming are optional? For either the customers or the employees? Seriously the full breadth of humanity shops there. I should say here that I fully realize that a lot of people who shop (and work) there are poor. Very poor. But what about the people who feel that size small clothing fits perfectly on their size large bodies??? Those who don’t realize that the 80’s ended a loooonnnngggg time ago? And that’s just fashion. Some of the conversations I’ve overheard in that place…
10. After reading all of the above, do I really need a 10th reason?

One may wonder why I shop there if I hate the place so much. Simple answer is that it is the closest store to our house if you need to run out and pick something up quickly (I refer myself to number 1 above). Plus it’s the only decent (loosely speaking) grocery store in town. We’ve actually been trying lately to shop there the least amount possibly but that’s hard if you don’t have time to drive over to Knightdale. If anyone who works for Target is reading this and could put in a good word with the powers that be for a store in Zebulon, NC, I would greatly appreciate it…and boy would I be a loyal customer. Yes, yes, I know that Target in the world of poorly treated non-unionized employees isn’t much better but at least the shopping experience is more pleasant. Until then, it’s Wally World in a pinch!

And in case you’re wondering, we purchased the bike at Target and not Wal-Mart.