Walmart, how I hate thee!

Let me begin by saying that I haven’t always hated Walmart.  In fact, when I bought my first house, I would go to Walmart at 1 or 2 in the morning to get  XYorZ for the house.  I loved going there, especially the nice, new Super Walmart. Somewhere along the way, the love affair came to an abrupt end.  I can’t exactly remember when it happened, but one day I realized that MOST of the time, I had negative experiences at Walmart.

The most common experience was dealing with workers who behaved like they were doing me a favor to be there . . .the customer service was and has been almost non-existent.

• People never seem to know where anything is located . . .they either say “I don’t know where that is.” or they send you on a wild, goose chase.
  
• For some reason, there are always LONG lines at the checkout counters, and the cashier’s very rarely speak a word to you.  Sometimes, they don’t even bother to tell you the total of your purchase!!

The most annoying experiences are the ones where I can’t find what I want.  That especially annoys me now that I have to schlepp two toddlers with me, so getting into and out of Walmart is a challenge in and of itself.  I would really rather shop elsewhere, I just can’t justify driving 30 minutes to Target just to buy one or two items when Walmart is only 10 minutes away.  So as much as I hate going there, I end up there somewhat often.

Yesterday took the cake.  We went to buy a hodge-podge of items.  We left the store with ALL of the items we were looking for and it seemed like it had been a very successful Walmart outing, much to my surprise.  I should have known better.  We get home and I pull out the washable markers . . .. one of the markers had leaked all over the place.  Then we pulled out the two bubble guns:  one didn’t work at all, the other barely worked.  Of course, the babes were VERY disappointed and wailed away.  Then we tried out the preschool scissors . . .they were TERRIBLE . .. . I could barely use them, let alone my 2.5 year old!  GRRR!

So back we’ll go to Walmart today to return a fair amount of merchandise and then hope and pray that we can find suitable replacements.  I’m seriously looking forward to the day we live closer to a Target or Kmart, then this foolishness will cease!