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29 January, 2010

A trip to Wal-mart in West Virginia...and more on why Wal-mart sucks

On a recent trip to Wal-mart I was struck by a couple of incidents and observations that even in the presence of a the gigantic, face-less, everywhere super mart itself could not persuade me I was anywhere but West Virginia.

The first was the fact that you barely know this Wal-mart actually exists. It's built right by the interstate but there is no large sign and you can't see the front. It's as if you have to just KNOW that it is there, you have to be an insider. Sometimes this seems to be the case in West Virginia for me. There is some information that isn't shared it's just stuff that is known by folks who have lived here all their lives. Like drugs in Huntington come from Michigan...or is it Florida? And if you are going to criticize Coal or Hunting you better shout it from the other side of the Ohio river.

The second was on the way out of Wal-mart when the greeter stopped us on the way out.

"Hey, I need to see your receipt for that trash can. Oh, and here have this chicken."

And she had handed us a cooked, Deli, rotisserie chicken. They must have just closed and we happened to be the next folks along. I'm not sure if that is official Wal-mart policy but it sure made me glad to be in West Virginia.

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On another note, did I mention Wal-mart sucks? They don't have the brand of chips I like that EVERY OTHER STORE HAS, they didn't have the movie I wanted at their red box, they have stopped selling frozen sausage rolls that I love, they open enough registers to ensure that every customer must wait 25 minutes in line, their lights hurt my eyes, the carts only have two wheels, they replaced nearly everything with their own brand products (which I don't have coupons for) ,they stopped selling sirloin ground beef (tell me about it!) and they obviously spent about 2 cents on the credit card scanning devices...phew!

I'm off to Kroger.

2 comments:

Evil Twin's Wife said...

Their store brands are, IMO, very good and in most cases even better than a name brand equivalent. But, you're right about them not carrying things they had before. It makes me nuts!

Christopher Scott Jones said...

WalMArt waits 'til I fall in love with something, then takes it away.


How I miss thee, InnovAsian orange chicken.