Why I Hate Wal-Mart

So here it is. Why I Hate Wal-Mart. I really don't hate it all the time. The prices are low, I can get everything that I need, it's close to home, and normally it's pain free.

But last night...yes, I went there after Target. I was so desperate to prove how awful Target was.

Wal-Mart had everything that I needed except paper. Again, tons of college ruled. Apparently Oklahoma college students don't use a lot of paper. I found the cute binders, glue, erasers of every shape, size, and color, crayons galore, and brad folders. Oh how much I loved Wal-Mart at that moment.

I grabbed a few groceries and headed to the check out lines. They have 30. Six were open. Six. It was 8:10 at night. Six was not going to cut it. I picked the short one, I was ninth in line. After the first 10 minutes of waiting I checked out the other lines, looked around for workers that might be walking to a register to open it, found nothing better, and grabbed a magazine to read. 25 minutes later (now 35 in line) it was my turn to check out. My cashier, Brian, apologized for the wait and told me that they were so short on cashiers that they had pulled him from electronics. He'd never actually been a cashier. Oh joy. He had different bagging skills then I have every witnessed. He tried for quite some time to shove a box of lasagna noodles into a bag that already had three boxes of cereal. But my cottage cheese, it got it's own bag all to itself. About fifteen items from being done there was a big power surge because of the massive rainstorm outside. When the power came back on Brian just had a weird look on his face. After consulting with the cashier next to him he just stared at the register. The lady in the next line looked at Brian and said, "Don't you think you should call someone?" Bless her heart. I was so overwhelmed that I was in shock. He turned on his blinking light to ask for help and after a few minutes just walked off to find someone. While he was gone I watched the register list of my items blank out and start displaying gibberish. That couldn't be good. Turns out the power surge had zapped just my register. None of the others were effected. Imagine my surprise. I had to unpack the entire cart, un-bag everything, and let Brian re-scan it all. Then...well, I won't bore you with the details of why my receipt didn't print out but it took another 10 minutes. As I pushed my cart away from the register I glanced at my watch, it had been a solid hour.

I was so ready to be out of there that I decided to brave the monsoon and get home as quickly as possible. My cute floral umbrella was no match for the sideways rain and within seconds I was soaked clean through. I opened the trunk and started throwing. I didn't even care. I was miserable and just wanted to be done. I didn't return my cart (big pet peeve of mine), just parked it near my door and swam in. The rain was so heavy that I couldn't see even with the wipers on high. I found a truck going the same way as me and just followed his brake lights. I had to pull off once to survey a low spot and didn't leave again until I saw a Ford Focus make it through. I called Shawn during that time to vent, freak out, and ask for advice. I finally made it home, asked Shawn to unload the car, peeled off my clothes, wrapped myself in a towel, and had a nice warm cup of coffee.

Now, are you ready for the kicker? It stopped raining as soon as I was inside. Why me??