And you can get a really great price on them when they show up in the discount bin!
Eh, this has been going on forever, and not just at WalMart. When I was in high school, about 40 years ago, all the cool kids hung out at the mall, not shopping, just window shopping, talking to friends, and engaging in a little shoplifting if they were feeling really edgy. There are still malls, and still mall rats, but the big box stores are also places where kids gather to hang out.
For that matter, parents will drop kids off at libraries or just about any public place. Sometimes the kids know how to behave themselves, sometimes they don’t.
There is no Walmart Downtown… 
Unless you are referring to the Steelyard Commons one?
I like WalMart and shop there a lot. I don’t normally see anyone too outrageous there.
The funniest thing I have seen at a WalMart was a van with a full size room air conditioner mounted in the back door. They had cut out a section of the door and fit it right in there.
I wish I had taken a picture. 
Weirdest people I’ve ever seen weren’t at WalMart but rather Micro Center.
Specifically a backdoor exploit.
53 checkout lanes. 3 open
Check.
Anybody you see working there with a full set of teeth has a vendor ID?
Check.
Restocking takes 82 pallet jacks and enough pallets to tilt a aircraft carrier?
Check.
That’s harsh. They are working. What would you rather have them do?
Floss?
Hey, it was teed up, had to go there.
I was remarking on WalMarts tendency to NOT HAVE real employees–they outsource everything, and nobody realy works for them.
And good gods managment, would it kill you to have a few people running the registers to, you know, TAKE MY MONEY???
There are two WMs near me. One was the site where some nutjob ran in with a gun and shot and killed a cop who was moonlighting as a security guard. It’s a standard Super WM, and it’s kept very clean. It’s massive and spacious, and short of the lines, a relatively decent shopping experience.
I don’t typically grocery shop, as our local grocer is really great and I love their store brand. But I will get staples and fresh produce there. I do feel guilty because their stuff is so cheap, I know someone down the line is getting shafted.
The clientele is mostly (seemingly) middle- to low-income, lots of folks of color, immigrant families. The store is fine, but the parking lot is full of tricked out cheap econo-boxes with ridiculous sound systems. Every other car is a huge SUV of some kind. So parking can invoke headaches.
The other WM is in a redeveloped shopping center and is supposed to be more upscale.
Stranger around these here parts, ain’t ya?
I don’t think that WM is particularly evangelical…a lot of people/religions are offended by women being called ‘bitches’.
In my area, depends on which WM I go to. The one nearest my apartment is a poorly stocked, messy zoo catering to a very ghetto population. (I use the term “ghetto” to refer to attitude and behavior.)
There are others near enough to go to reasonably conveniently that are neat, well stocked, and feature a better class of customer.
I find the staff agreeable at all of them, and reality is that a lot of people can’t afford to shop at those oh-so-hip-and-speshul indie places that charge twice as much for half the selection and have staff that act like they’re doing you a favor by condescending to take your filthy lucre.
I have encountered people of Walmart at Walmart. I’ve seen a couple of them at Target too when I worked there one year.
A lot of it is where the store is situated (neighborhood, industrial park area, easy off the highway) but I think the further south in the US you go, the more likely you are to find the stereotype. No, I’m not putting down the south but up here we bundle up for several months of the year so you don’t get to see all the bad fashion going on under the coat.
I do go to Wally World for a few items but generally, I shop at Targe Boutique because it’s what I’ve been doing since I was a wee one and they opened the first Target mere blocks from my home.
Yeah, I’m nowhere close to low income. Husband and I are both Master’s level college graduates with professional careers. And when I shop at Wal-Mart, most of the time I’m wearing baggy sweats, a loose t-shirt, and flip-flops. No make-up, hair pulled back. I’m sure that I look ‘sketchy’ and ‘low income’. I’m also certain that I don’t give a flying fuck. I’m there to buy household products and garden supplies, not impress others with my affuence.
It depends.
The WM in one of my former neighborhoods is tidy,carries some more mainstream / upscale brands in addition to the bargain stuff and has a certified kosher meat counter and bakery.
The WM in the urban neighborhood in a depressed part of the city, where I lived before moving to my current address was unkempt, dirty and you did see folks like the ones who populate the People of WalMart site.
In the WM here in the small town just outside of the city where I now live, you’re apt to see anyone.
In the WM in the depressed small town in the hills where my brother used to live, it was where everybody went because it was the only game in town. It was dirty, understocked and smelled like vinegar, pee and cigarette smoke.
The corporate folk at WM know their demographic wherever they build and run the stores accordingly.
Few people in my state smoke, and even fewer in the part where I live. Of the few who do smoke, hardly anyone smokes indoors or in their cars. In the Wal-Mart nearest me, in a walk through the parking lot you will encounter piles of cigarette butts. I never see this anywhere else. So, Wal-Mart is the store of choice for people who smoke in their cars.
I’ve also seen full diapers in the parking lot.
“Tulsa police arrested a woman for attempting to make meth inside a Walmart store”