I'd rather pay more for less....

Rob and I have accepted the fact that we are not Wal-Mart's targeted demographic anymore. We prefer an actual turkey breast as opposed to a turket roast. We prefer our daughter be in clothes that will hold up beyond one wash and are not so high in polyester content that she would break out in flames if left standing too long in the Georgia sun. We do not wish to be constantly exposed to toddlers running around in soiled diapers and nothing else, parents screaming (and I have seen them hitting) their overly-tired, hopped up on Sunny Delight children in the aisles or things stacked all willy-nilly essentially turning our retail experience into somethig resembling a Filene's Bridal Sale. Essentially, we are happy to take our business to Target and Publix/Kroger/Whole Foods and pay a bit more for convenience, order and the superior feeling of being able to find wasabi peas, Ukranian feta and bok choy exactly where they should be.

Sadly, fate forced me to visit a Super Wal-Mart yesterday. Well, mostly it was traffic, time constraints and laziness. Frankly, I found it not so super. It occured to me after my experience that one of the inherent problems of shopping at Wal-Mart is that it is the site where The Implied Social Contract Of Shopping is most often breeched and with the most chaotic of results. Now granted, allowances can be made for people who generally shop Amazon, QVC or infommercials whose social abilities have suffered from limited exposure to social shopping. I'm not sure that THESE were THOSE people.

First, I was forced to circle the parking lot several times in an attempt to secure a parking spot as though I was a hungry shark looking for a handicapped squid. I have no problem with this, quite frankly compared to trying to get a spot at IKEA, this was amateur hour. But what I do take offense to is the idgit who will sit with their hugemongus SUV at the head of the row with half of it sticking out into the lane waiting for some harried mother of four to transfer all of her children from the shopping buggy, kicking, screaming and waving sticky-candy of some kind, as well as nine bags of...whatever and securing the whole lot by folding and unfolding seats, turning on DVDs and wrapping bungee cords around bags. This process can take, understandably, a good ten minutes or more to complete. And yet, the asshat in the SUV will sit blocking not only the one aisle in both directions but any traffic in the main thoroughfair as if this is the last freakin' parking spot in the last Wal-Mart on Earth and they are planning on buying enough cases of Sam's brand bottled water and cheap fiber board computer desks that they would not possibly be able to transport them one step further then that second row parking place. Of course, when the space is finally vacated, they discover that their gas sucking dragon can not possibly fit into the space due to the fact that the person in the absurdly huge truck next to them has (also) violated the Rule Of Orderly Parking and inched over the yellow line. Of course, this discovery is only made after ten attempts at wedging the mastadon in from every possible angle.

Once a parking place is secured and you have entered the store, after the Great Cart Hunt for One Not Sticky or Full Of Trash, the real fun begins. I will give credit and say that more often then not, Wal-Mart has the brains to put some very friendly retired lady or gentleman as the greeter who is only too pround and happy to hand you your Retail Acquisition Vehicle.

Yesterday, I needed one small birthday cake, candles for said cake, a bag, tissue paper and baseball cards. First stop, deli. I perused the cake selection and did indeed find exaclty what I needed after picking through several layers as if I was at some cake jumble sale. $6.99 for a cake that had four slices in it, wedding cake is less expensive per slice. The woman behind the counter told me that it would be far more cost-effective to buy a larger cake. I thanked her but said that was all I needed. She told me again that it was cheaper to get a cake for ten. No, thanks, I'm on a diet and I don't want extra cake laying about. But really, if I bought a sheet cake that was for twenty-five that said Happy Retirement, Morty with a trout piped onto it that had never been picked up it basically became pennies per serving.

Finally I located everything I needed which took about half an hour due to the fact that everywhere I kept running into people Bluetoohing all over the store, apparently so amazed at what the Bluetoother on the other end was sharing that they were forced to stop there carts in the middle of aisles and exclaim in disbelief! Go Lord, what do you mean Hildy's kids are only going to be going to Holy Innocents three days a week! Are they in financial trouble? Should we take a casserole over?

I then proceeded to check-out. Having on previous occasions been exposed to sullen and just plain rude check out personnel at these 48 very registers, of which less the four are generally open, I proceeded directly to self check. And here is where things often begin to go wrong. Really, wrong.

People abandon carts, exceed the ten item limit apparently on the premise that if you can divide their items by ten and get less then ten then that is acceptable, intermingle their athletic socks and Mr. Clean Magic erasers with your fat-free sour cream and People magazine by refusing to use the conveyor belt seperators or remember they "need something else and will be back in two seconds" and run off to the back forty acres of the store to retrieve those knee-highs that slipped their minds earlier as they were distracted by the impressive display of Isotoner slippers. On this occasion none of those things happened. Instead I was confronted with being behind the Old Ladies Who Have Never Scanned Their Own Purchases and Thought It Would Be Exciting.

Now, do not misunderstand me. I have no problem with the elderly. I, in fact, hope to be one one day. I am certainly willing to make allowances for a decrease in speed, agility and learning curve. Seeing what lay before me I grabbed an US Weekly and read about the soul stirring details of Nick and Jessica's divorce feud. First, the ladies couldn't grasp the concept of having to scan and bag before the reader would take the next item. Additionally, they had thirty items and obviously they were not fitting into the two bag allowance given you on the scale. So they would take a bag off only to find that they had brought to an abrupt halt their check-out. Eventually when all had been bagged and transferred they then whipped out a credit card, illiciting internal groans from all in line. They tried to slot the card in everywhere but the actual reader. Later, rather then sooner, a blue vested employee came over with a key and a card and begin Obi Wanning them to complete their transaction.

At this point a woman ran up like the next contestant on Price Is Right and went directly to one of the closed self-checks and begin punching buttons like she was trying to download schematics from NASA only to discover to her shock that it had not specially booted up as it sensed her approach and she was forced to stand in line with the rest of us plebes. What is that? If it was working would we all be standing there trying to pretend we weren't reading the headlines on the Enquirer? Assboobie!

Then the dear ladies remembered they had a five gallon jug of Wesson on the bottom they had forgotten to scan. I started on Ladies Home Journal as the wheel of Karma began another rotation.

At last, it was my turn to scan, running free and unaided like the Rothschild giraffe upon the Serengeti plains. I scanned in quick order. My total ran about $30 and I had $25 in cash. I slotted in the cash and whipped out my Visa Debit for the balance, ran it and red lights started going off like we had hit DefCon One and Cheyenne Mountain was going on lock-down. Again, a blue vest hustled over.

"It says that you need to hit the credit key at the main register," I told him.

"I don't have one," he replied as he pushed buttons in a manner that suggested to me he had no idea what he was doing but wanted to make it look as if he was trying to resolve the problem.

"Perhaps if we hit the cancel key and reran the card..." I suggested.

"No, no. I'll have to void the transaction!" He hit more buttons and the screen immediately flipped to Spanish.

"Um...okay. We could just cancel out the payment and I could put the whole thing on my debit card," I offered.

"No, that will never work! My God, this is worse then the American Express/Cheese Wiz debacle of '87! What are we to do? What I ask?" He was getting a bit wild eyed with panic. "I know! We'll void out the enitre tranaction, rescan everything and I'll run your card through again and credit you for the $25. Of course, I will need to alert the store manager who is on vacation in Florida and he will have to clear it with the Controller and there will be an awesome firestorm of forms to fill out at Customer Service I assure you," he intoned like an ancient Greek prophet.

"Um, okay."

"Oh gracious! Now it's not showing the credit for your cash! It's gone! It's gone! Now what?" At this point he may have started crying. I'd also like to point out that I was roughly a foot taller then the guy.

"Tell you what, I'm going to go ahead and push the button that says payment type that keeps blinking and let's see what happens, shall we?"

"This is highly sophisticated equiptment! You can't be pushing buttons like that! You don't have on a blue vest. The humanity! We're all doomed! Doomed I say! The wrath of Sam Walton is upon us! Flee with your children!"

I pushed the button. It asked my preference in payments albeit in Espanol. I hit credit card, ran my card through and it promptly spit out a receipt for five dollars charged on my card. I thanked Tiny Tim, wished him well with getting his medication dosage right and went on my way.

Once my bags were stowed and the SUV behind me had begun to wedge it's self into my parking spot before I had in fact completely vacated it, I was caught in a jumble of cars that looked like we were waiting for a Mardi Gras parade to be over. And on we sat. Eventually we begin to inch forward and I noticed that the same two women who were in front of me at check-out had (and I'm not even sure I can fathom why and I have drawn a scale model to try) backed their Buick Regal into the middle of the row, aligned it tail to tail with the shopping car return, put on the flashers and were out transferring bags to the trunk. I'm just not sure why? WHY? What possible advantage could that have held?

Anyway, a prime example of the social contract being squashed under the weight of sub-par employee training and bad consumer economics. And the cake wasn't even that good.