If you’re shopping in a Wal-Mart, just assume at all times that there is ** always** someone waiting for you to get your ass out of the way when you:
stop in the middle of the aisle
leave your cart blocking the aisle
stand and talk with your friends/spouse/kids/whatever you brought shopping with you
wander along the aisle at 1/20 normal shopping speed for no discernible reason
stop and check your receipt on the way out of the store, blocking the exits
Teach your kids these rules, too. And while you’re at it, teach them that a department store isn’t a playground, and someone will run them over with a shopping cart someday as they run wild through the aisles. It may or may not be an accident.
(Just as an aside, straight walkers have right-of-way over diagonal walkers. Somebody’s gonna get stepped on and/or kicked in the shins, cutting me off like that some day.)
People these days have absolutely no idea where they end. I know this because after I said “excuse me” to a woman who was blocking the aisle in the grocery store, she apologized sincerely and moved one quarter of an inch. When I tried to scoot past her and bumped her accidentally, she apologized again and moved another quarter of an inch. The physics was beyond her - I truly think she thought she took up less space than she actually did.
Not to mention that everybody (EVERYBODY!) is so caught up in their own damn selves that they come to a complete stop while walking in the mall, and it never even occurs to them that someone might be right behind them. Or they walk four abreast, oblivious to the fact that they’re taking up entire aisles.
Some days I swear I’m going to encase myself in one of those extra large hamster balls just to provide some insulation from the no-sense-of-personal-space people.
The other day at the grocery store, the entire aisle was empty except for me, my mother, and this other lady. We looking at the same items, so we were grouped together in the center of the aisle. The lady then finds what she was looking for, and starts to turn around, pushing my mother into the side of the cart. The lady finishes turning around, at which point my mother is squooshed into the cart which is pushed up against the shelves. Only after my mother grunts out an “oof” does the lady realize what she’s done. At least she had the decency to apologize.
And I second the middle paragraph of LifeOnWry’s post.
A special announcement to Wal-Mart shoppers in beautiful Las Cruces, New Mexico: we know some of you love to shop as an extended family, but please break up once you get into the store. A slow-moving group consisting of los abuelos, mama, padre, tios y tias, primos y primas, y 15 niños can make it very difficult for others to navigate the store. We understand that close traditional extended families are an integral and important part of traditional New Mexico culture, but please … split up just for an hour or so.
Remember, if someone has put their cart someplace in an aisle, that is the exact place for you to put your cart also. After all, carts have feelings too, and want to be right next to each other.
And while your at it, let your kids run three abreast down the aisle.
We take our guide dog puppy to the supermarket, and she’s a lot better behaved than a lot of the people.
I’m ashamed to say that my husband is one of these clueless people. No matter HOW many times I tell him “Bill, this lady needs to get past, you’re blocking the whole aisle” he will park himself and his cart in the middle of the aisle five minutes later. He’s been this way for at LEAST 27.5 years. I don’t know if it’s genetic or just sheer cussedness. I swear, I’m gonna start carrying a Taser when we shop together. At least I’ll get some amusement before I’m carted away.
I see (and hear) this kind of complaint endlessly about Wal-Mart and the other big, crowded stores, but people keep on going back there. I don’t understand it. If I find someplace unpleasant, I tend to stay away from it. Despite Wal-Mart’s best efforts to destroy them, there are still many thousands of small stores out there that offer better service and people knowledgeable about the products they sell.
If you have negative experiences at Wal-Mart (and I’m sure not reading about any positive ones), then why do you continue to shop there?
I was at JC Penneys the other day, surrounded by a generation older than myself. Half of them waited patiently in line, while the other half bitched that there wasn’t enough help on the floor (true, but what is bitching gonna do?).
I waited quietly, and refused to crowd the line up to the register - when the people in front of me moved, I moved some, too.
Then the last person in front of me moved, taking his turn. I didn’t want to move, but the woman behind me said “you can move up now” and shoved me. I said (too) quietly “I would appreciate it if you kept your hands to yourself”. She shouted “whaat!?” and I repeated it, more loudly. She mumbled something about “only trying to help” and shut up after that.
(I know I’ve told this story before, but it fits here.)
My husband had his cart parked on an endcap at one of those warehouse stores and was looking at an item on the display. He is a large man (both tall and broad), and did not just materialize out of nowhere or use a cloaking device to hide himself from view. Nonetheless, he looked up just in time to see a woman walking hand-in-hand with her young daughter, coming straight down the aisle, daughter aimed by the mother’s pathway straight for the end of the cart, and before he could call out a warning, the mother walked the kid right into the front end of his (non-moving) cart. She began to yell at him for “running over” her daughter, only to have the (calling out and ignored) husband run up, having seen the whole thing, apologize to my husband, and take away his daughter and wife, griping at the wife about what’d really happened.
Another total cluelessness/entitledness story: I was in a large chain bookstore with a few long aisles of magazine racks, two levels on each, facing each other. There was a thin bench in the middle of this aisle, equidistant from either end. A couple with their child in one of those oversized strollers had plopped down on the bench, and placed the stroller between the other side of the bench and the other rack, thus pretty much blocking off all passage down the aisle. I said “excuse me” quietly, which earned an annoyed look from the mom and (I am not exaggerating) the stroller being moved an inch or two away from the rack. This provided only perhaps a foot to squeeze through between the stroller and the rack. I wasn’t about to actually touch the stroller with my hand (lest that result in “kidnapper!/molester!” shrieking or something), so I faced towards the rack and squeezed through, inevitably bumping it slightly in the process. The reaction was more annoyance and repositioning the stroller to block the aisle a little better. I saw other people squeeze through, or come around the other side once they’d checked out the magazines in that half of the aisle.
Why do I shop at Wal-Mart if I don’t like it? Why don’t clueless people stop shopping there? I have as much right to go into any store as anyone else. I make an effort so that my presence there doesn’t have an impact on those around me, and I would like it if other people’s didn’t have an impact on me, either. That ain’t gonna happen, what with all the cluelessness and entitlement, so I come here and blow off a little steam.
(Ferret Herder, my husband and I call those oversized strollers “Baby SUVs”.)
OK, I’ll bite. Here are my reasons I continue to shop at Walmart:
The unpleasant things (clueless other shoppers, mainly) aren’t limited to Walmart, so avoiding Walmart won’t help me there. The clueless aisle-cloggers are everywhere, small stores too.
Walmart is huge, with an incredible variety of stuff. I can go in with a list of items to buy and find everything I want. Going to a number of smaller stores to buy the same things would take more time. This is especially true in winter when you have to clean the snow off the car after every stop. Don’t underestimate the convenience factor of only parking (for free) once.
I don’t need better service and knowledgeable staff to buy laundry detergent, socks, cleaners, etc. Let’s face it. 99% of the time, this is what ‘shopping’ is.
I try and shop during un-crowded times. Even the smaller stores are crowded on a Saturday afternoon. Avoiding Walmart doesn’t help me avoid the crowds. Altering my shopping time does though.
Price. Generally speaking Walmart’s price is going to be cheaper than the smaller store.
Walmart’s way of doing business certainly comes under a lot of criticism, and I won’t get into that debate now, but unlike many others stores they do seem to be making an effort to get me to part with my money. Some of the smaller stores seem to be clueless on the basics of retailing and don’t give a rat’s ass if I shop there or not.
Some smaller stores close at 6pm on weekdays, and aren’t open until 10 in the morning. June Cleaver may not mind those hours, but I do. They can’t be arsed to unlock both front doors. They don’t bother to advertise. They leave stuff out without a price on it; figuring people won’t mind having to ask what the price is. They don’t have enough shopping carts, or they are all still out in the parking lot because they can’t be bothered to bring them in.
Walmart, on the other hand, hires an old guy to make sure you have a cart in your hand as soon as you walk through the door. They know people buy more that way. Why don’t other stores bother to do that? Why don’t other stores put some freaking effort into it?
It’s not just Wally-World. I spent New Years in Las Vegas, and the people visiting that lovely city are the most oblivious cretins on Earth. All the same behavior was exhibited: stopping in the middle of aisles, walking at the speed of glaciers, etc. The locals and professionals are great…it’s all those damned tourists that are the problem!
If you have a thick skin, a loud “Move it, moron!” works wonders with these behemoths.
If I understand correctly then, featherlou and LionelHutz405, you like Wal-Mart, you just don’t like (some of) the other people that shop there. That, I can understand and respect.
I just don’t get the people who grouse every day about their experiences at (fill in store name here), and then go back to it the next time they shop. I was talking to someone the other day who was telling me how nice it was in our small-town bookstore because you could ask a question and get a knowledgeable answer. She went on at length about how much she hated the Barnes & Noble in the nearby big town, yet she shops at the B&N on a regular basis. Why go there if you hate it?
'Cause, in small burgs like mine, Wal-Mart has run every other store in town out of business. Our Main Street looks like a ghost town, and the Wal-Mart parking lot is packed to overflowing. It’s almost as sad as it is angering.
I much, much prefer to patronize locally owned businesses, but unfortunately, the few which are left have little selection, or are only open during hours which I am not able to shop.
…a link to Scylla’s 2003 work of sheer genius, Walmartians. You’ll laugh! You’ll cry!
As for me, I’m fortunate enough to have a plethora of local stores to walk to, even in my rather small-townish NYC neighborhood. I spent 20 minutes in a WallyWorld in Albuquerque in 1997 (dragged there by a friend) and still want them back.
