1-800-Wal-Mart

There’s two hells on earth. The first I mentioned before, the DMV. The second is Wal-Mart. I hate Wal-Mart. It’s the worst place ever. Everytime I go near it, I get depressed. So why do I hate this place with a sincere passion? Here’s why:

I was home for Christmas break one year and my mom sent Betsy, Katy and I on a short mission to get an electric blanket for my grandparents who were visiting that year. We made the biggest mistake of going to Wal-Mart. When seeing there weren’t any on the shelve, I tried finding a sales associate to help me to see if there were any in the back. There were none to be found. All I could find was a 15 year old with a missing tooth and a mustard stain on his little blue vest that looked at me like I was crazy for asking him to help me. I then looked at my little sister who was starting to hyperventilate from all the weird looking people bumping into and criss-crossing in front of her. We immediately left almost not making it past the stampede heading towards the point-of-sales unit displaying Slimfasts for $5.99. When we walked through the automatic doors of Target, I was blinded by the bright lights and I think I heard an angel choir singing in the background. We had just reached retail heaven.

Another time, I had to go to Wal-Mart for an assignment in one of my Advertising classes. We were supposed to go to Wal-Mart and Target and write a paper on the comparison between the two stores’ advertising strategies. I choose an end-cap display and start jotting down notes. I was almost done when some middle-aged dirty overweight guy that had a hole in his T-Shirt pushed his cart into me and rudely says, “What are you doing, comparative shopping?!” I said, “No, I’m doing an assignment…excuse you.” He goes, “Oh, my daughter did the worst thing she possibly could have done when she went to college. She chose Communications as her major…like it takes any neurons to do communications…” I glanced over at him and said, “That’s my major. And I enjoy it very much thank you.” “Oh come on, all you have to do is say please and thank you and shake someones hand! Where are you gonna find a respectable job doing that?!” I said, “I actually have a great job doing internal communications for a government contracting company…what do you do!?” He goes, “I guess that’s pretty good, but I still think it’s stupid.” I was so offended. He just bashed the one thing I worked so hard in for 4 years! What a moron! So I did what any offended person would do – offend back. I said, “Well, that’s why you shop at Wal-Mart and I only come here for assignments!” And I walked away shoving his cart back into him. I cried to my roommate on the phone all the way back to campus.

The third time I went to Wal-Mart was just recently over New Years. It was 11:30 pm in Dallas and we wanted to buy some cheap champagne to ring in the New Year. We had to move quick cause you can’t buy alcohol after midnight. So all 6 of us ran into the Wal-Mart down the street from our hotel and made our way to the check out line. Of course out of all 300 cash registers, there’s only 3 open. And each have like 20 people in line. So we go to the express check-out line and get in the back of the line. We wait and wait and wait. And finally we get up to the front and Scooter gives the lady his newly acquired Vermont drivers license. She swipes it in the register. Who swipes an ID?! He was of age, but the machine said his license had expired on that day! She looked at it and clearly it said expiration: 2009. She calls the manager who definitely took her time coming to the front. When she finally came, she grabs the ID and goes, “It’s a fake…you all need to leave.” We were all like, “WHAT?! It’s not fake, that’s his drivers license!” She started to take it away and leave, when Scooter goes, “Whoa Whoa Whoa, how is it fake? Do you even know what a Vermont license looks like? We’re in Texas.” She then points out everything on the license that is fake. We couldn’t believe it. There we were, six Christians just trying to buy a bottle of $2.99 champagne and we get accused of having a fake ID. So she just walks away like a great manager does when theres a problem and of course there’s 5 million people behind us waiting. So David walks all the way down to a customer service desk where a guy was sitting with his feet up and refused to give him a complaint form. Then he tells our cashier to call back the manager for one. As we’re waiting, David goes to the “greeter” who is a 6’2’’ guy with a size small blue vest and is wearing a hunting trucker hat and asks him what the number to Wal-Mart is. He goes, “sorry I can’t leave my area.” So Dave said, “well can you call someone!?” So the guy LEAVES THE AREA to go get that same stupid manager that we were waiting on already. We wait for another 10 minutes and she finally comes back and shoves a small piece of paper into Scooters hand, then walks away again. He opened it up only to read, “1-800-Wal-Mart.” ARE YOU SERIOUS?! Little blue vest guy couldn’t just tell us that?! The customer service that I had witnessed was at an all time low. All we could do was offer a pity laugh.

I also read Nickle and Dimed. Read that and your perception of Wal-Mart will change drastically!

So that’s why I hate Wal-Mart. I’d rather pay the $2 extra it takes to buy it from Target than go to Wal-Mart any day. There’s something about that smiley face too. It’s too happy for a place like that. And if ya’ll are waiting for an Amy disclaimer you can forget it, cause I don’t feel bad about my animosity towards Wal-Mart. Screw rollback prices!!!