Quality Time At Walmart

Tonight, I made my once-in-several-months visit to Walmart. I despise Walmart, but in my small town, sometimes it's the only place to find certain items like a plain, simple, landline phone without an answering machine or any other gadgets. While I was there, I picked up a few other items.

As I walk through the store, I feel something like panic rising in my chest, so I take a few deep breaths and try to chill. It's a terrible place, with the noise, the high ceilings, near chaos in the grocery area, with carts coming at you from every direction and around every corner.

I finish my shopping and go to checkout where the lines are long. I spot a self-checkout machine with no one around and decide to try it, although, in the past, I've most often been unsuccessful in completing the process without help from a human being - which Walmart resents, because if you are using self-checkout, you're then supposed to do it YOURSELF. With the scan of my first item the machine yells at me to put the item in the bagging area or press the button to skip bagging. I put the item in the bagging area, and the machine yells at me that there's something in the bagging area that does not belong there. I move the item to the cart and that seems OK, so I continue, and the rest of the process goes well. I have to slice the card a few times as I try to figure out which side goes where from the little picture, which is very confusing, at least to me, but that is a minor complication.

Then I look for my receipt, which is nowhere to be seen. I stop an employee and ask her about my receipt. "It's right here," she says, around the corner of the machine and out of sight. Should it be in view? Of course not! This is not supposed to be easy. It's a challenge! The noise and the chaos and the high ceilings are to get you rattled so that you thoroughly appreciate the fact that shopping at Walmart is a daunting undertaking and not for the fainthearted.

I check my receipt, and my print paper is scanned twice. It costs $1.88. I think, "I'll let it go." Then I think, "No. This is Walmart. I want my $2.00 back." I'll have to go to Customer Service to have that done, which can be an ordeal worse than eternal damnation, but tonight the gods are smiling on me, and no one else is there. I get my $2.04 refund, and I go out the doors feeling semi-triumphant but determined not to repeat a visit to the place for at least several months.