Why Walmart is The Great Satan

Yesterday, being Wednesday, Joey and I went to church. It was our first night down in Youth Group, which was quite fun. We had decided to ride our bikes to Walmart after church, so we boogied out of there pretty quick so we could be home before 10:00. I figure it's about a 7 mile round trip to Wally World and back.

I have no idea why we decided to go to Walmart instead of Target. We both dislike Walmart, but after yesterday...the dislike is much, much worse.

Here are some reasons why I hate Walmart:

1. They have "People Greeters" at the front door who give you uncomfortable looks when you walk in. I used to wonder if they thought, when they saw me, "Holy cow, how many times can a girl go to Walmart in a week?" But that was before I quit going.

2. Walmart carts are really junky. They're usually swervers and usually have a busted wheel.

3. It's hard to find someone, anyone, who knows what you're looking for, and harder still to get them to come help you. A particular instance comes to mind: Sister and I were at Walmart trying to buy sparklign grape juice once. Naturally, they were out. So we called some guy over and he said, "Um, I'll go get someone." He ran over to the little phone hooked to a post and paged someone to the juice aisle over the intercom. Aparrently his scanner said there were 4 bottles of this stuff in the store somewhere, and this other person was supposed to find them for us.

We waited. And waited.

No one came.

Sister finally decided to go to the film area to grab something. I said I'd wait for the juice guy.

I waited.

I got tired of waiting, so I snuck over to the wall phone the guy had just paged the juice person on, and pushed "intercom". I paged him again. It was really weird hearing my own voice go out on the loudspeaker over the entire Walmart store, but it was satisfying at the same time.

Still no one came.

We finally gave up and went to Target, where they had exactly what we wanted. Target always comes through.

4. Walmart keeps their groceries on the opposite side of the store from the toiletries and hygine items. SO ANNOYING! Target, on the other hand, has all that stuff together. You can run in, run out and never have left the green side of the store. It's beautiful.

5. There are only about 5 people running checkout lines at any given time at Walmart. This forces people to use the "Self Check" lines. Oh. My. Word. This brings me to last evening. Joey and I got our groceries (mind you, we rode our bikes over and it was 9:20 pm) and headed to check out. Nobody was in line for the Self Check line, so we started scanning away.

We get entirely done, and go to weigh the 6 red potatoes that we'd picked up for dinner on Sunday, since we're having company.

The scale is broken.

We hit the "help" button and wait for the girl to come over and fix it.

"Oh, the scale's broken on this one," she says. The proceeds to try to weigh the potatoes three more times. "I'm going to have to get someone to help you with this."

That's fine, we wait. Joey's wondering why the lane is open if the scale is broken. I don't have an answer for him.

Some lady comes over, not the manager who was called, and decides that she'll be the one to help us.

She weighs the potatoes. "Oh, this scale is broken." I consider beating my head against the conveyer belt. She weighs the potatoes three or four more times. Nothin'.

The manager comes over, sees that this lady is "helping" us and leaves.

She weighs the potatoes again. And again.

Finally, she gives up and starts typing things into a screen. The potatoes ring up for $14.44. "Woah!" Joey says.

The lady is embarassed and tries to take the charge off. People behind us are mumbling and grousing. I consider telling them to go get another line, this scale is broken anyway. I don't do it.

A few more minutes pass. The lady finagles the machine to ring the potatoes up for $0.05. I suppose I should be happy that I just paid five cents for potatoes, but my annoyance level is kind of high. I keep my mouth shut and we leave the store.

Twenty minutes later.

Self check lanes are a waste of your time. Especially at Walmart.

6. Last, but not least, is those stupid metal detectors. Every time I walk through one, I set it off. Doesn't matter if I am carrying anything, if I have my purse, or if I stole something. (Which I don't do.) I set the darn thing off.

As we're walking out, commenting on how we'll probably never come to Walmart again unless someone's got a gun to our heads, I set the alarm off.

The "People Greeter" we saw earlier makes a beeline for Joey, who begins digging through the bag trying to find the receipt.

He can't find it.

I consider just running out the door, but I realize that won't help Joey be able to leave any faster, and besides, he has the keys to unlock the bikes. So I stand there. Joey digs and digs....

Finally, he finds the receipt. It was stuck under something.

The People Greeter allows us to go on our way.

All this is why we're never, ever going back to Walmart unless we have no other options available. Sorry, Dad.