Big Bad Walmart Rant

On Friday, circumstances aligned themselves most unfavorably and we found ourselves in Renton before the opening of Target or any other such civilized establishment, unwilling to travel far in morning traffic, and *gasp* within sight distance of an open (of course) Walmart.

Walmart should be razed to the ground and the likes of Sam Walton and all his progeny should be erased forever from the collective memory of our society.

It sucked.

I've avoided Walmart for about a year now. In fact, I can recall the last time we went to Walmart it was to pick up a last-second birthday present for the same child whose birthday party we went to on Saturday, so it was exactly a year between trips.

We browsed to kill some time before Target opened or I could safely get back on the freeway. The store was dirty. The employees were oblivious. The radio overhead played a maddeningly static-popping country music station, which midway through our stay at the store somehow found an R&B station as well, so we had Country, R&B, and Static playing through the crappy speakers all at once. Madness threatened. The floor was dirty enough to blacken the kids' hands when they decided ("Ewww, get off the floor!") to race each other down an aisle on hands and knees. Items were out of stock, others overstocked enough that bulky pallet-fulls of such assorted items as fabric softener, toilet paper, and Juicy Juice were strewn about the aisles randomly, like some newbie couldn't remember where they belonged and, unable to find another employee to ask (they were certainly short-staffed enough), did the sensible thing and walked out of that hellhole on the spot.

We left before the freeway was free. I just needed out.

We went to Target. Everything I'd purchased at Walmart was less expensive at Target. 24 pack Crayola crayons, $.25 at Walmart, $.10 at Target. 70 page craptastic notebooks $.10 at Walmart, $.05 at Target. Even the REGULAR PRICE CLOTHING was cheaper at Target (and I already only buy it on clearance, which, by the way, was ALSO cheaper at Target by over HALF).

What. The. Fuck.

Never, ever, evereverevereverever going back to Walmart again. Ever.