I went to Wal-Mart today to buy some batteries. Okay? Easy job. Since batteries are located in the electronics department I paid at the register there.
I don’t have anything else to buy so I head for the exit. Once I get there I see that the greeter guy who’s supposed to check your receipt is chatting with one of his buddies and not paying attention. Okay, no big deal, right? They normally don’t check your receipt anyway. Most people just walk right on out the door.
Not me. Being the pleasant, law-abiding citizen that I am, I slow down to catch the greeter’s attention, hold up my Wal-Mart plastic bag to show him the Wal-Mart receipt stuck on it, smile, and keep walking.
The greeter says something. Now, it’s pretty noisy in a Wal-Mart, so I didn’t hear him the first time. I stop.
“Excuse me?”
“I said the exit is over there.” He points.
I look that way and notice I am on a direct course for the entrance door. The one that has no sensor and doesn’t open from this direction. On the other side a woman and her kids are looking at me funny.
“Um, thank you,” I say, ooze under the correct door, and escape into the parking lot.
Well, shoot! I came in here hoping it was going to be a serious “How to…” thread. I have to go to Wal-Mart this week, and I was looking for some hints.
The best I’ve been able to come up with on my own is, “When you walk in the door, immediately ask the greeter where the Returns desk is. She will point to it 20 feet away from both of you.”
Also, somebody told me you can go to a Super-Center and get both ice cream and clothes, and make sure that at least one clothing item has no tag and needs a price check (preferably an out-of-season Clearance item). This means your ice cream will be melting while you wait, and is very effective at making you look stupid. Has anybody else tried this? Does it work?
I can beat that… try taking your tipsy mother with you. A while back my husband and I took my mom out to Chili’s to eat. She got one of their “top shelf” margaritas. Then we went to Wal Mart. Just as we walk through the door, she tries to stand on one foot and get “something” out of her shoe… then promptly falls over onto the greeter. Yep, that was humiliating.
No one is asking the obvious corrolary question. Is it infact possible to look INTELLIGENT at a Wal-Mart. It is theorized that the answer is “no” though mathematicians are working hard on the prrof right now. I think it involves concepts like “googol” “calculus” and “greeter” but I wouldn’t know. I’ve shopped at a Wal-Mart too often.
<paraphrased from a comedian I saw about 10 years ago>
Go in to a Super Center and buy food and toilet paper. Then ask the cashier if you have enough toilet paper for the amount of food you are buying. You’ll look like a genius then I bet.
Most new Walmarts are set up all -exactly- the same. Some however; are mirror images of the standard mold. I got very lost and confused in one. It was worse than a random arrangement of depts would have been. It was in South Jersey, and I hope to never be so silly as to say “but wait, isn’t the exit this way?!?”
Hell I can top that. I needed to build a set of wind flags for competetive rifle shooting. Flags are like little windmill/weather vanes that quickly tell you windspeed and direction to help you adjust shots. Most flags are made from those daisy pinwheels people put in lawns. Just try walking out of Wally World carrying a couple of big green plastic daisies while trying to maintain some dignity. Cripes, I was almost beaten up by hillbillies before I got to my truck in the parking lot. “Mister, that some purty flowers ya got there.” I swear there was an inbred kid playing a banjo somewhere around there.
Well, my advice to you: Never run around the store with a water gun hummimg the Mission Impossible theme. You will seriously get some strange looks before you get kicked out.
How about turning up at a crowded checkout with several virtually unknown credit card which they won’t take before finally digging round in your pockets for a mass of loose change to pay the thirty dollars you owe.Even better if there are four of you who have to put together.
For added effect you could drop one or two coins that comprise the total just as you hand it to the cashier, with luck you could have half the staff on their hands and knees looking for maybe thirty cents.
Then put your purchases into carrier bags with very prominent logos supplied by a differant store
But just before you walk away from the till, finally having paid, make sure that a bottle of sauce crashes to the floor and smashes rendering that area as useless retail space until the mess is cleaned up.
Make sure you keep repeating “oh my goodness I am **so ** sorry.”
Try being in the candy aisle having your (almost) 3 year old pulling candy off the shelf and putting it into the cart while you’re bent over the cart trying to pull you hair out of the hands of your 9 month old. After finally getting your hair free and putting the candy back on the shelf (not in the right place either, just throwing it up there) you try to regain your composure only to blow the loudest fart of your life and then having your 3 year old say in a very loud voice, “You fart mommy?” Very embarassing!!
When the cashier tells you to “enjoy your purchases!” You politely say “You, too!” And walk away, stop, turn around with index finger pointed, and say “What I meant when I said that was that I hope you have a good day.” And turn around, to hear snickering behind you.
OK, so it ain’t toilet paper and food, but I’ve done it more than once.
Personally, I’ve lost all respect for you if you even walk into WalMart. K-Mart (Big K) is way better! Working at K-Mart, I see lots of stupid people every day. K-Mart and WalMart are pretty similar, so I think doing the same kind of stuff would make you stupid in both places.
How to be stupid at Wal*Mart (or Kmart):
Squabble over a matter of cents… “That wasn’t 1.69! The sign said 1.65!!”
Inability to do simple math… “No, no, no! That’s not 2.50! In the ad it said 4 for $10!!”
Insist that the register operator take out a calculator and add up the price of everything, because they think the register doesn’t add right…
Go there with the intent of buying something huge, such as a patio set…driving your Honda Civic…
Insist that everything will be “just fine” attached to the roof of your Honda Civic…
Having the store make you sign a waiver, relieving themselves of any responsibility if the patio set falls off of your Honda Civic, or any damage is incurred to the set or car…and still insisting that everything will be “just fine”…
Having the set fall off of the roof of your Honda Civic before you even get out of the parking lot…
Most of these stores have oil recycling facilities where you can bring back your used oil to get dumped. How about putting the used oil back into their original containers, and bringing them back to the store for a refund?
That’s all I can think of right now. All of this stuff HAS happened to me before…some of them happen a lot…
Oh, and just kidding about losing all respect for you if you even step into Wal*Mart…we all make mistakes…
16 Fun Things To Do In K-Mart
1) Get boxes of condoms and randomly put
them in peoples carts while they aren’t
looking.
2) Make a trail of orange juice one the floor leading to the bathrooms.
3) Set alarm clocks to go off a ten minute intervals throughout the day.
4) Tell an employee in a serious tone " We have a code 3 in housewares" and see what they do.
5) Challenge other shoppers to a deul with tubes of gift wrap.
6) Put M&M's on layaway
7) Take the signs that say "Caution- Wet
Floor" and move them to carpeted areas.
8) Set up a tent in the Sporting Goods
department. Tell people they can come in, only if they bring pillows and blankets from the Bed and Bath department.
9) When asked if you need help, burst into tears and scream "Why don't you people just leave me alone!?"
10) Dart around suspiciously while humming the tune to "Mission Impossible"
11) Look into the security camera mirror and pick your nose.
12) Take up an entire toy aisle by setting up a full scale battlefield of The X-Men vs G.I. Joes.
13) Set up a Valet Parking sign in front of the store.
14) Hide in clothing racks. When a shopper browses though the rack, say "Pick Me! Pick Me!"
15) Go to the food court and ask for a soda. Tell them you don't get out much, and you would like a little umbrella to go with it.
16) Go into the dressing room and say real loud "Hey! There's no toilet paper in here!"
Super Wal-Mart can be used for fun and frolic. We had 2 teams of 2 people. Each team had a cart and started in the middle of the store. Each team had 30 minutes to put 30 items (from anywhere in the store) into the cart and make it back to the starting point. Each team then had to take the other teams cart and replace all 30 items in the same spot they were initially. First team done wins. You do have to do the replacement on the honor system, but it is pretty fun to spped around the place yelling to a friend “Where’s the pantyhose section!”
One night, my sisters and I went to Wal-Mart. My youngest sister and I only wanted to get some sort of snack and maybe rent a video, but my other sister decided she needed to buy a bunch of new clothes. So, we’d accompanied her to the clothes section, and she decided that she wanted to look at some stuff over on the other side of the department. Rather than following her around with all our stuff, we decided to park where we were and wait for her to get back. We waited. And waited. After about ten minutes, the monotony started getting to us. We noticed a security camera, and started making idle remarks about it. My sister said “Oh, no! Now how are we going to plan the revolution?” I said that she was absolutely right. We needed to move behind this clothesrack. So we did. Then we noticed another camera. We moved somewhere else, which put us right back in the line of sight of the first one. No matter where we went, the cameras could see us. So, finally, we determined that the only solution was to hide inside one of those circular clothesracks. We picked one, bedecked with ghastly colored sweatpants, and hid within it, drawing the sweatpants around ourselves like a curtain. We then proceeded to plot the overthrow of the government by violence or force. It was at this point that one of the sales associates found us and had a huge laugh at our expense.
And how old was I when this happened? Uh… twenty-two.
