What I did Saturday & why I don't shop Wal-Mart!

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Wal-Mart has been here for more than 20 years. The original store closed and a 24-hr Super Center opened two years ago. It's stocked fairly well, clean, doesn't seem cramped, and is VERY convenient for me to drop in @ 2 AM. I've rarely had any customer service issues. Occasionally I have to wait a few mins for the cashier to come up from doing whatever other chores she has to do in the wee-morn hrs. The security alarm caught me several times on DVDs that didn't have the strip deactivated correctly, and once was on a package of razor blades. I've stopped trying to use the self-checkout lanes as something usually goes wrong, but that's no big deal.

There's no Target or K-Mart here. A Walgreens opened earlier this year. I've been in the store once, bought a bottle of no-flush niacin tablets that was double the price @ WM (WM was out at the time), and a couple cans of almonds on sale. Other than "convenience" stores, there's only one other grocery. It's a new store, but seems more cramped and crowded than WM and often rearranges the shelves making finding things an adventure and an irritation. And it closes @ 11 PM. I do shop there regularly, mostly for my grandmother, but the majority of my personal buys are at WM. The grocery does have better produce than WM and a larger variety of package sizes for meats.
 
I value my time and sanity, so I avoid Wal-Mart

I restore antique electric fans in my spare time and at one point I needed to buy some grease for a 1925 GE. I got in my car and headed out to Home Depot (close enough to Wal-Mart for the purposes of thi story). Before I got to the Home Depot, I thought: What the heck am I doing? If I go to Home Depot, I will have to battle heavy traffic across town, park in their huge parking lot, walk across the HUGE parking lot to the HUGE store, treck across the store until I find the proper section, then hope to find an employee. Hopefully that employee will be able to find another employee who knows something which will help me determine the correct grease I need to buy. Once I have my, hopefully correct, grease, I will have to treck back across the store to the checkout lanes, wait in line, treck across the parking lot to my car, and fight the traffic home across town again. Rather than accept this inconvenience, I went to the little mom & pop hardware store (J.E. Rice Hardware in Manassas, VA). From the time I parked my car to the time I drove off was under 5 minutes, I got the right grease whith great customer service. It cost a few cents more than Home Depot, but the service, speed, and accuracy was worth it.

Good customer service can never be over-appreciated,
Dave
 
For some oddball reason, I don't buy gas for the car @ WM, but I typically do for the lawn mower. Well, maybe it's 'cause I typically fill the car at 2 AM or thereabouts and WM shuts off their canopy lights earlier. Buc-ee's next door doesn't.

Last time I got lawn-mower gas @ WM I filled the 5-gal tank, loaded it back in the car and went to pay cash at the attendant. Moseying on up to the window, I reach around back for my wallet, and it wasn't there. No cash, no credit card. Eeeeeeek. I told my sob-story to the attendant, and she trusted me to go home and get the cash (which is just a mile or so up the road from the store). She was laughing when I got back. I could have left the 5-gal can there for "collateral" but I don't imagine she knew I had filled that and not the car.
 
The WM gas stations (Murphy Oil by the way, the same company that flooded our houses with oil during Katrina) have stickers on their pumps "No Prepayment required, we trust you". Huh???? Then right close to it is a sign "You are being recorded by a video surveillance system". Must be some kind of setup.
 
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