Sorry for the lack of updates. Lots going on, but probably nothing any of you would be interested in.
I’m up to my elbows in projects so I stayed up late last night, got up early this morning and didn’t leave the house until around 1. Tonight I made a presentation at a Collierville church for a project I hope to be working on this summer.
I did make it to Wal-Mart today. I guess being stuck in the house most of the day made me kind of want to get out amongst people. You won’t find any place in America where you’ll get over that feeling quicker than at Wal-Mart.
If you ever see me standing in line at a supermarket or Wal-Mart and you’re in a hurry, do yourself a favor and get in another line. I have this knack of finding the slowest line in the entire chain of stores. The woman in front of me tonight had purchased something in the home and garden section but didn’t bring it to the counter with her. She DESCRIBED what she wanted to the cashier who then had to get on a phone with Barney in the Garden Shop and describe it to him. “It’s a round thingy that goes”.
A swimming pool? A tire? (we’re in the south you know). A hemorrhoid cushion?
No, it was “a thingy you put in the yard…you know around plants and stuff”.
Barney, the cashier and the human speed bump finally figured it out and I thought we were on our way. But nooooo. The slow-poke had to write the item number down in her little notebook that she apparently carries around to note each and every special Wal-Mart moment.
Then…there were the coupons.
Then, the cashier forgot to give her her cash back and needed a supervisor.
By this time I had picked up one of those hyped up Mountain Dews in the tiny can. You know the ones they call “energy drinks”. It has about 100 grams of caffeine in it. After I finally got through the checkout line I reached for my just-paid-for jolt of life and pushed my cart toward the door. The cashier yelled for me to say I had left all of my bags at the checkout.
That one little run to Wal-Mart took nearly 45 minutes and about 4 years off my life.
I noticed as I was finally pushing my cart to the parking lot, I was walking sideways. I must have looked like a dog as it runs to you from far away. You know what I mean, when the dog’s butt sort of gets un-even with the rest of his body and starts to get sideways.
I guess that’s what they mean by being dog tired.
One of my pet peeves. ALL of the lines in Walmart are the slowest lines in the world. I’m always behind the 8 people in the only 20-item line that’s open, behind the person who has 32 items in their basket, and in front of the one who is chatting loudly on their cell phone about all the terrible things that happened at work that day. The person at the front of the line is really in no hurry, and doesn’t think about payment until after all groceries are rung up, and then writes a check, and updates their check register before they hand over the check to the cashier. No matter how I feel when I go into a WM, I’m exhausted when I get back to the car. I know they layout these stores to force you to see as much stuff as possible, but I just HATE having to walk all the way to the back of the store for a gallon of milk. THANKS HEAVENS for our “relatively” new Target and Schnucks in Collierville…if I had been forced to go to WM much longer, I might have had to move!
Wal-Mart is under fire right now, not only because of it’s hiring and promotion policies but from a grassroots group upset at it’s “corporate exploitation”.
One problem I’ve had with Wal-Mart is how they force small mom and pop businesses out of business when they move into a town.
Christians are beginning to boycott Wal-Mart. Read the article “deliver us from Wal-Mart” at http://www.christianitytoday.com
Good article…so, as concerned Christians, are we to boycott Wal-Mart, and possibly cause those employees who depend on their Walmart jobs to lose them? Is it likely that, faced with decreasing customer base, that Walmart will respond by increasing wages? I’m not sure that’s how WM execs would respond.
I’m not astute enough to know how to approach this – I see the harm they do (re the Mom and Pop stores), but as someone who has to clothe and feed (and send to college) three growing kids, it’s hard to justify spending more money on principle. But that’s exactly what WM counts on, isn’t it?