[B-Chan]

I dunno about the Tiffany Mr. Stein patronizes in Northern Idaho, but here in Texas the service at Tiffany is prompt, courteous, and friendly.

Shopping at Wal-Mart, on the other hand, is like beaming down to Planet NASCAR - a world known for its fetid atmospheric gases, harsh overhead lighting, and grunting, apelike humanoid inhabitants. It's usually dirty at Wal-Mart, not to mention funny-smelling, and the poorly-lit parking lot is a gauntlet of panhandlers, drifters, and guys that look like the Randy Quaid character from Christmas Vacation, right down to their grime-encrusted RVs - all of whom "just need a couple of bucks for gas so they can make it to Uncle Lonny's". Once inside, it's a mind-numbing nightmare to fimd what you're actually looking for, and if you do find it there's usually one checker for every 100 checkout aisles, guaranteeing that you will end up waiting endlessly in line behind the funny-smelling old white lady who purchases eveything with rolls of pennies (which she counts twice to make sure she hasn't been cheated), the scowling black teenager in full Detroit Bulls uniform buying a single package of batteries with a Amex Platinum Card (and no ID), and the gum-snapping crimped-haired Latina who insists on paying for her 49 cent package of SpongeBob SquarePants hair scrunchies with an un-numbered third-party check drawn on the Bank of Guatemala and made out to CASH. "Ax me fo' my driver's license? Oh no you dih-int!"

All this to buy a can of WD-40.

And I didn't even mention the legions of screaming, mucus-encrusted children that run through the store like packs of Morlocks from an H.G. Wells novel. Your average Wal-Mart is like a combination day-care center and meth lab - a reeking bedlam of overstimulated, gene-damaged, poopy-pants pre-teen mutants with mullet haircuts and WWF sweatshirts, all purple-faced and screaming for Daddy to buy them the ceral with the free Nazi armband in every box. Yeah, that's the atmosphere I want to be in after a hard day of work.

Do I like Wal-Mart? Hmm. Let's just say that if a smallpox plague were to hit Tarrant County and the only place to get the vaccine tonight was the 24-hour Wal-Mart SuperCenter, I'd take my chances waiting until Target opened tomorrow at ten and pay ten cents more to buy it there. Call me a snob, but next to the prospect of an evening spent among the Wal-Martians, even the threat of having virulent, suppurating pustules covering my eyes, nose, and throat seems somehow less scary.

[FreedomCalls]

Why didn't you use the self check-out?

[moonpie57]

I think you need to move to Georgia. My closest Walmart is nothing like that...lol

[Kirkwood]

We shop at the same place!

[TheMole]

...the scowling black teenager in full Detroit Bulls uniform buying a single package of batteries with a Amex Platinum Card (and no ID)...

Detroit Bulls? You mean he had a Bulls top and Pistons shorts or something?

You must live in a tough area. The 20-odd Wal-Marts I've seen (all in the Pacific Northwest and Canada) have all been fairly clean and bright with native English-speaking staff and reasonable waiting times at the checkout.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Not having a good day huh??

[Mind-numbed Robot]

You're a snob. Next time don't take so much space and perfidy to get to that point.

[Caesar Soze]

Detroit Bulls?

[Quilla]

Hilarious post - the imagery, the color, the mucus....

FWIW, developers in Panama City Beach, FL just purchased a relatively new, well located Super Wal-Mart for $300 million. They're going to doze it and build condominiums.

[eno_]

Uhhh, maybe you need an overall change of venue. Where I live Wal-Mart is where normals go to get motor oil, garden hoses, and detergent and not get ripped off.

[conservative cat]

LMAO. That sounds about right!

[Final Authority]

Outstanding!!. I could not have said it better.

There are a few things you either forgot or haven't experienced. For example the ethnic woman buying all sorts of bad food, no veggies or fresh anything, using a WIC card and goes over but also she is buying all sorts of stuff that is excluded by WIC. So, she pulls out her purse and hands over a credit card. The cashier runs it and it doesn't work, so she pulls out another and another and another until one works. The cashier asks for ID and the woman pretends not to understand so the cashier calls over the ethnic manager. She OKs the transaction with a wave. All while I am patiently waiting because I am next in a line of at least 15 people and have already invested too much of my time to just walk out, like I should have earlier.

Or the time I was buying some milk and veggies after work and stood in line. In front of me was a couple of guys preparing to overhaul their car or at least do an oil change. They put all the stuff on the belt conveyor and one of the jugs of oil springs a leak. The cashier pays little attention. When I get to the head of the line I try to pass the cashier my milk and fresh vegetables so not to get them oiled up. She looks at me with a certain disgust as if to say " who do you think you are"? I do not buy food there anymore.

[SunnySide]

"And I didn't even mention the legions of screaming, mucus-encrusted children that run through the store like packs of Morlocks from an H.G. Wells novel"

Written like the typical anti-family GAY hair dresser with no chair or salon to put it in. Tssssssk!

[SunnySide]

B-Chans been around one too many hot perm treatments.

[Ciexyz]

What a hatchet job (Post 37) against Walmart. Bet you work for the competition!

I've experienced nothing but courtesy and cleanliness at my two local Walmarts.

[Max Combined]

You sound more like an effete elitist wimp than a Roman Catholic Texan.

[Lx]

Damn, I wish our Walmart was that nice...

Where do you live, in Watts?

[ozzymandus]

Sounds more like a function of where you live. Or maybe you're just a would-be snob.

[GOPcapitalist]

Never fails to amaze me how often this exact situation plays out at Wal-Mart. At my local Wal-Mart we've also got the terrorist families in flea-infested turbans who smell like they've just spent six months in the desert without a bath, invariably trying to maneuver a six foot tall 200 pound box containing the components of a particle board dinette set onto the self scan reader then acting mystified when it pulls up an error message after they set the thing on the weight verification scale intended for things that actually fit in a bag. It never fails to set off a chain reaction. The Wal-Mart employee comes over to figure out why the little light is flashing, only to discover that the machine's patron only speaks arabic (and is babbling away in it at that). The worker then goes through the hand motions trying to communicate how to properly scan the thing and tries in vain convince the terrorist that he's not being cheated or double charged. Meanwhile all the little Achmed Jr.'s are raiding the candy display nearby while the burqa clad mother watches on, doing nothing to control them or even impede them while they hold a mini-jihad in the aisle using Butterfingers and the M&M's pack one of them has ripped into. Everyone else is forced to stand there watching the whole ordeal in the line that they thought would be an express lane, just trying to get a tube of toothpaste or a pack of batteries. Naturally, there's only one other self scan lane in operation (the other four being out of service) and it has some fat lady, who obviously cannot read the "12 items or less" sign, hand scanning her thanksgiving feast grocery list at about the same speed it takes Mohammed to get through his furniture problems.

The nearest Wal-Mart to me is only a couple miles up the road, but last weekend I drove 25 miles each way to go to the nearest Super-Target just so I didn't have to put up with Wal-Mart. The other thing is that Wal-Mart seems to actively ATTRACT the clientel that it has no matter where they are. The Wal-Mart I reluctantly use is smack in the middle of a wealthy suburb, right next to some upper scale shopping districts with nothing but high-dollar houses and condos for miles around it, but it is ALWAYS full of trailer trash, hip hop gangstas, and terrorists who don't live anywhere near here.