Heh.
But having worked at Sears at that time, we were genuinely surprised - and somewhat concerned - when Ward’s went belly-up. A lot of us at that time figured that sooner or later, Sears would go the same way.
Yeah those were great days! Good old Monkey Wards...
Took my soon to be wife’s car to Monkey Ward’s to have 4 tires changed...had a brand new Goodyear Eagle in the trunk. Went with a set of their tires instead as we couldn’t afford new Eagles (what the car came with).
While in the waiting room, a “mechanic” came in and spoke to the elderly lady who was there about all of the “problems” he had found with her car and had “conveniently” written up the estimate for “repairs”.
When he left, I told her to get out of there as fast as possible and if she was concerned, to get a 2nd opinion. I expected, and was not disappointed when the “mechanic” for my job came in and tried the same thing. Struts, brakes, cv joints, etc. were all “bad” and in need of replacement, showed me the estimate.
Told him to please just change the tires.
A few days later I was checking these things and when I went to get the jack out of the back...one of the old tires was now on the spare wheel and the brand new Eagle was gone.
...crooks.
My parents owned a Western Auto. In fact, my son still runs that same store in our small town. If I remember correctly, Western Auto bought out Whites and shut them down. Sears bought out Western Auto and shut them down. Then Sears bought Kmart and shut lots of Kmart stores. I guess I don’t feel too bad about Sears going broke. They helped to create the no mom and pop store world we seem to have today. Our store still has a Western Auto sign up and we still try to treat our customers as friends because that is what they are to us. Buy locally from small stores. You might be surprised by superior service even if we can’t beat their cut-throat price.