I Hate Wal-Mart

That kind of says a lot, huh?

And why do I hate Wal-Mart?

Well, it all started when I watched the documentary, "Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price." That film paints the company as a very community and employee unfriendly company.

So, I vowed not to shop there any more.

But that didn't last long. They lure you with their everyday low prices. And when you're there you have to watch out for falling prices because they reduce those everyday prices even more all the time. I mean, in this economy, who doesn't want to shop inexpensively?

And for a DVD/movie nut like myself, I can't often pass up the huge bin of $5 DVDs.

What's more, how could you really say anything bad about a company that embraced a young Natalie Portman after she had a baby there after her boyfriend left her in the parking lot of an Oklahoma store? (What? Haven't any of you seen Where the Heart Is?)

Watch the doc I mentioned above and you see why you can dislike Wal-Mart despite being nice to Natalie and selling cheap DVDs.

However, that's not the reason I have sworn off Wal-Mart forever. In the past three weeks, I have been to a Wal-Mart on two occasions and they have been two different Wal-Marts here in Lexington.

I went to the one out at Nicholasville and Man 'O War (I don't live close to this one but I was out by the mall to go to the theatre and wanted some snacks to sneak into the movie. Don't judge me, you know movie concessions are outrageous!). I only had a few items and was tempted to use the lane where you can check out yourself but they were all packed. All the normal lanes were packed but I saw the light on at Lane 1, which is one of those quickie, 10-items or less lanes. I walked around and even though the light was on, I saw nobody there. I decided to forgive that as maybe someone just forgot to turn the light off. So I stepped in the next 10-items line behind about three others. A couple moments later I saw a young man in one of those nice blue Wal-Mart vests step up to Lane 1. AWESOME!!!!!! It wasn't closed after all. So I quickly stepped over before anyone else could.

I set my four items on the counter and waited to make my payment. The young man, let's call him Fred (which was not the name on his tag), scanned my items. He didn't address me in any way. When he finished, he simply said, "That's $xx.xx." (I used the "x" because I don't remember the total.) I swiped my debit card. While I awaited the approval, Fred decided to carry on a conversation, and loudly I might add, with the guy who was handing out shopping carts. When my purchase was approved, Fred handed me my receipt and started scanning the items of the next customer. He never addressed me then, either. He was a kid, so I let it go.

A number of days later, I visited the Wal-Mart at Richmond Road and Man 'O War (this one is closer to where I live) to pick up a few items. This store does not have the "do-it-yourself" checkout, so I didn't have that option, but the line at the 10-items lane was very low, so I stepped up. "Cathy" was working the register while "Kathy" was helping bag. I wondered why there were two people at an express lane register and so I looked at their name tags to see if either was a trainee. The tags gave no evidence of that so I just figured they had too many working that day and that was the only thing to do. When I walked up, the two were carrying on a conversation. I placed my items on the counter, again just a few. The process was the same as before. Neither of them spoke to me, or even acknowledged that I was there. This time Cathy didn't even give me my total. So, I was a little upset. Since I was paying with my debit again, I decided for once to answer the question that greets you on the card-swiper machine. In the past it has said, "Was your cashier friendly today?" or something like that. I never answered it before because I would just automatically swipe my card and it would just advance to the "PIN-entering" screen. But this time, I was going to answer. And, dammit, there was a different question. This time it asked, "Was the store clean?" (or something like that). While I didn't notice it being dirty, I answered no. Cathy approved my purchase and handed me the receipt. While doing so, she never turned from Kathy and never stopped her conversation. If I had stolen something neither of those Chatty C(K)athies would have been able to identify me to the cops because neither of them saw me. For all they know, Prince could have come in, sang "Let's Go Crazy," played a guitar solo, finished with "Purple Rain," and left.

It was then that I decided to forever stay out of Wal-Mart. Now i'd rather pay an extra couple of dollars and go to Meijer or Target.

I hate Wal-Mart...

p.s. And how ridiculous is it that a store will not sell CDs that have explicit lyrics, but will sell R-rated movies? WTF?