My Last Trip to Wal-Mart. Ever.

I hate Wal-Mart.  There, I said it.

I hate everything about it.  It stinks.  The customers are
annoying.  The customer service stinks worse than the air.

My commute to work has a new traffic light thanks to Wal-Mart.  It's one
more red light to sit through while I'm in a rush to get to the office. 
The signal is activated seemingly when someone stomps on it hard enough. 
AND, it's right before train tracks, so sometimes it finally turns green for the
major route just as a train shows up.  Even worse, if I go the other
direction, then Wal-Mart shoppers stop for their red light IN THE MIDDLE OF THE
NEXT INTERSECTION.  Traffic is snarled everywhere because of Wal-Mart.

The parking lot is horrible.  The secondary entrance has a twist in it to
get to the parking spots and people (typical in this town) get confused once
they enter the lot.  They're not sure where they should be driving, so they
do it as slowly as possible.  Even worse is the main entrance to the
store.  The entire crosswalk becomes a parking area for people picking up
large packages/people or dropping off  someone (or like Sunday night, entire
families of 7).  Because the crosswalk gets clogged with vehicles, people
cross anywhere and everywhere, never bothering to look and see if there's one of
those "big things with 4 wheels" headed straight for them.  And
I'm still convinced that the employees park in the front half of the lot. 
No one ever leaves those spots --no matter how long you've been in the store.

It stinks!  There's a McDonald's Express (contradiction in terms --Express
means there's less staff there to take your orders and "make" the
food, so it takes twice as long to get a cheeseburger) just inside the
doors.  The smell of grease permeates the entire store and frankly gets
quite nauseating.

There was one time a few months back I was looking for CD/DVD carriers (those
nylon ones that hold 100-200+ discs) and they were tucked into a corner of the
electronics department, behind a huge cardboard display for the Daredevil
DVD.  It was an old display and was falling apart.  One wrong move
around this thing and I was looking at being buried under an avalanche of
unwanted DVDs.  I can't think of worse ways to go, but there'd be a slight
chance that Jennifer Garner's image would be the last thing I saw before
everything goes dark.  But I digress...

No I don't.  I've struggled in behind this display to try and see what the
prices are like for the nylon cases.  All of a sudden, I have a striking
pain in my ankle.  A lady has run into me with her shopping cart.  I
was in her way (I was in a corner) and she kept pushing me until I moved. 
I got away from her and went down another aisle to check on the price of CD-RWs. 
I'm standing beside a group of teenagers complaining about not finding any of
the music they like.  I'm hoping it was just incidental they were talking
about in an aisle filled with nothing but blank CDs...  I heard one of them
say, "Whoa!  Look out!" and suddenly, WHAM!  My ankle's sore
again.  Same bloody woman just hit me with her cart.  I fled the
store.

So Sunday night I arrive to get a DVD for my brother-in-law.  Should be a
quick 10 minutes once I navigate my way through the parking lot.  I find a
good DVD right away (he's easy to shop for as well) and get into line in the
electronics department.  The lone clerk is overwhelmed with people coming
up behind him (they're behind a desk and people still push their way in). 
Another employee walks by and a woman behind me asks him if everything in this
area needs to be paid for at this one desk.  He says no and half the line
vanishes and heads towards the main checkout area.  The express lines are
25+ deep, so I make my way further down the conglomeration hoping to find a
short line a one of the cashiers.  No such luck until I get to the 3rd last
till.  There's 3 people in line.  

5 minutes goes by and the first person is done.  I think to myself,
"another 2 people at 5 minutes each and I won't pay for this DVD for
another 10 minutes..."  A cashier opens up on the last aisle and I'm
tempted to move over, but close to a dozen people beat me to it.  I
should've gone anyway.  I see the line get longer and think I made a wise
choice staying where I did.  Unfortunately, the lady being served now is
arguing over the clearance prices on every item she's picked up.  Even
worse, half the items aren't tagged and the cashier keeps calling for price
checks.  Another 5 minutes goes by and I'm ready to throw the DVD at the
lady and tell my brother-in-law we forgot his gift at home in our rush to get to
the restaurant.  It is a rush to the restaurant as this has taken nearly 20
minutes longer than anticipated.  "Screw it!" I shout which gets
a bit of a chuckle from the guy in front of me in line (he's thinking it, but
trying to be a good example for his small boy --although he was letting the kid
rummage through the lady's stuff on the conveyor while they waited for her to
continue arguing over prices).  I stormed off still carrying the DVD and
saw that there was 2 people in line at the cosmetics counter.  It turns out
they were together and I paid for my item quickly.  But that was
enough.  I was going to stop in at the photo lab to see if our Christmas
cards were ready yet (we ordered photo-cards of the kids and it's taken over a
month to develop them), but I could care less about standing in another line in
Wal-Mart.

Never again, he says.  It's 20 minutes of my life gone.