Why I'll Never Shop At WalMart Again

I bundled my kids off to WalMart yesterday for two main reasons: 1) to shop for cheap new shoes for them both and 2) purchase a cheap but useful DVD player for my father's 70th birthday this coming week.

As we wound our way through the cavernous cheapness that is Wally World, the children started misbehaving. I don't call this blog Parent Traps because I'm an expert and this day showed I'm far from it. They were bickering and battling noisily, like siblings often do. We searched the kid's shoes and found them to be quite picked over with nothing in their sizes. (note: why can't anyone seem to keep shoes stocked?)

So we went over to the electronics to search for the DVD player, bickering kids continuing. Immediately, I was tailed by the overtly-dressed female security officer. I ignored her as she stayed somewhat away at first. Then she got into my face - I mean as I was looking at blank DVD's, she stood in my personal space. I knew what she was doing - she was profiling me as a shoplifter. My husband later said it was because I had a big purse and noisy kids - that's the typical WalMart thief. Yeah right, me, Vera Bradley-toting, mother-of-two, who was about to spend a fairly decent amount of dough on a gift there. Once again, I pretended she was not there (because with the kids already ticking me off, I wasn't in the mood to complain) and kept on doing what I was doing. As we walked out of the section, near the movies, she still followed me. I responded to her intimidation tactics by merely asking my daughter to name all the movies she wanted for Christmas and stepped into the security guards space. I wasn't going to be pressured. So we kept on doing our shopping and finally, as we moved out of that section, she left us alone. I was livid.

We finally found all our items from our list and we went to check out. We had the slowest, chattiest cashier on the face of the earth. She took 25 minutes to check out the person in front of us. Then she slowly checked us out as well. I made sure to keep my receipt in hand as we left.

As soon as we got the door, the buzzer rang. The greeter-slash-old geezer ran over to me and pointed excitedly "VCR, VCR". I, very angrily, handed him the receipt and said, "I just checked out". He didn't apologize and sent me on my way.

I know what happened. They rang the bell on me in security. The bastards! I will never, never, never, never, never set foot on any WalMart property again. I have cancelled my Sams Club membership today and my credit card. I have never been treated so shabbily by any retailer in my entire life. I have spent countless thousands funding WalMart's business expansion during my shopping life. No more - I will strictly fund Target and other retailers in the future where they don't treat you like a criminal for merely shopping with children.

We did shop at Target later in the day and were treated properly, with respect and courtesy. The way you should be. And they actually HAD shoes in my daughters' sizes.

With their endless China-made products, who needs WalMart anyway. I am boycotting WalMart forever! And you can bet I'm telling everyone I know this story. I can pay a few extra dollars to be treated like an honest citizen, not the thief that WalMart apparently thinks its customers all are.