I learned long ago that you
must be in the right frame of mind before attempting to shop at WalMart. You
cannot be in a hurry...you cannot be upset with people blocking the
aisles...you cannot expect exemplary customer service....AND you certainly
cannot expect an answer as to why they have 26 cash registers & only 8 are
open no matter how busy.
But all of that being said,
they do offer all kinds of products at really good prices. Maybe someday I'll
have enough money to avoid tackling shopping at WalMart. In the meantime, I prefer
to steel myself for the WalMart experience & save my hard earned cash for
the finer things in life...like lunches out & buying my granddaughter all
sorts of fun things.
Today I ventured out to
WalMart to do my dad's shopping. My guess is that I'm just naturally frugal
& don't have it in me to spend anyone's money foolishly. I consciously told
myself to simply be polite, smile at people & make the best of the
situation. It has become a challenge to me to shop at WalMart without
uttering more than a couple of curse words.
With my basket full I went
in search of a short line. Fortunately, it was midday & I found an open
register with two people ahead of me who had all of their items on the belt. I
pulled my cart up to unload my items but there weren't any of the little bars
that divide your purchases from the person in front of you. Why are there never
enough of those things? It can't cost that much to put 3 or 4 at every
register, can it? Finally the woman in front of me pulls the only stick from in
front of her items & puts it behind them. I smiled & thanked her.
All of my items were safely
on the belt & I began to interact with the woman & the checker.
Suddenly they realized her bathroom soap holder had no price tag. The woman
looked at me & said, "Oh, no, I'm that customer from hell who holds up
the line." I smiled. She told the checker she would go grab another one.
As she left she said, "My wallet is on the thing where you write
checks." The checker smiled at me & said, "We'll split it."
In the meantime the checker
couldn't figure out how to remove the security thing from a blood pressure
meter. By the time the woman returned with a new soap holder, the checker was
two registers down getting help. The woman again apologized & I said,
"No problem. I'm not in any hurry." We also discussed her knee surgery 3 weeks ago & how great she was doing. Finally the checker returns,
finishes her order & as she slides her card through the machine it falls
off in her hands! I'm pretty sure it is a design flaw since I've noticed most of them are
held together with rubber bands & tape.
It must have read her card
okay because it spit out her receipt. As she turned to leave she smiled at me
saying, "I'm really sorry. Usually I'm the one who is standing where you
are waiting for them to figure things out." I thought, yeah, tell me about
it.
The card reader had come
unplugged & no one could figure out how to hook it back up & attach it
to the holder. I thought about suggesting using rubber bands but decided
against it. The checker reached over & turned on the dreaded flashing
light. Oh, no...it could be forever until a supervisor appeared to fix it. I
made the decision to start putting all of my items back in the cart & move
to another cashier. Halfway through doing that, the checker exclaims, "I
think I've got it!" But it fell off in her hands once again.
