*An apologia for the smiley face. Edited

Hot on the heels of a defense of restaurant standardization by LabRat and Stingray comes this dissing of Walmart by Tam.
I understand, she’s criticizing the indigenous fauna rather than the place itself but the fact remains that dumping on Walmart has become a fashionable pastime. Let me state here, once and for all and without any shame, that I LOVE WALMART!
Consider this shopping list from last weekend.

Guinea pig chow
Timothy Hay (also for guinea pigs)
Laundry soap
Shampoo
Dryer exhaust hose
Olive oil (EVOO)

Yes, it’s an eclectic list but that’s what I NEEDED and I'd rather not spend my entire Saturday acquiring said items.

Now, a local grocery store had laundry soap on sale but they’d rip me a new one on the guinea pig food and shampoo and they don’t stock timothy hay. In addition, my wife has an affinity for a certain brand of laundry soap that ain’t easy to find. I could go to the neighborhood Ace hardware for the dryer hose and be SOL on the rest of the list but that’s where I bought the POS, made-in-china hose I was replacing.

So I went to Walmart. I purchased all the items on my list at a good price and I picked up a 100 pack of freeze-pops for the kids, (ON SALE!) none of which were made in China. For the record: My local TarJay doesn’t stock anything more exotic than doggy toothpaste. In other words, if you don’t own a dog or cat, like a normal person, don’t bother.

Full Disclosure: I used to work at Walmart. I was a Customer Service Manager. “CSM to sporting goods.” Yeah, that was me. Guess what, as a single man, I earned more than a living wage. And guess what what, they provided me with affordable health insurance. And guess what what what, thanks to magic of COBRA I took that insurance coverage with me when I left and joined a company that didn’t provide insurance. It paid for the birth of my first child.

An extraordinary selection of merchandise at an affordable price in a blog-post inspiring environment. What’s not to love?

PS. Thanks to the overheating caused by the aforementioned dryer hose, I had to go to Ace for a new dryer power cord and 220v outlet. Both were made in China.

*Title shamelessly ripped-off.

Comments

  1. Discussing Wal-Mart, Target, K-mart and shopping there-at is much akin to discussions on personal emergency preparedness. No matter how much ammo, food, water, medical supplies, generators, etc you personally have stockpiled, everyone else is doing it wrong.

    "He's naive, I'm prepared, you're paranoid."

    With shopping on the cheap like this, it becomes "They're trashy, I'm thrifty, you're wasting money."

    ReplyDelete
  2. If you can find it- it may live somewhere on YouTube- Penn and Teller gave one hell of a righteous smackdown to the Wally-world bashers this last season of "Bullshit!". It's well worth watching, if only for the pure cathartic qualities.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I wouldn't mind WallyWorld so much if it weren't for the other humans in there.

    If I could cook off a neutron hand grenade and lob it through the doors before entering to shop, it'd probably be okay.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "If I could cook off a neutron hand grenade and lob it through the doors before entering to shop, it'd probably be okay."

    I've about got the kinks worked out of the detonator, but getting it down to hand-held size is turning out to be a bitch and a half. If you've got any ideas, I'll be happy to collaborate. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Stingray,
    Damn you! I'm getting that rhyming pattern stuck in my head and I don't even know the f'ing song. Which is pretty amazing considering I've been at least peripherally exposed to every cartoon made in the last 13 years.

    ReplyDelete
  6. LabRat,
    I do love me some P&T Bullshit. The episode on gun control was too good. I haven't seen the Wallyworld episode. I'll look for it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Tam,
    But that's what makes it fun! I guess I should share some stories of what it's like to be on the other side of the counter at WallyWorld.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Here you go.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-uad6zBG1o

    ReplyDelete
  9. Stingray,
    That's it!
    "I love you, lady. Bye bye."

    ReplyDelete
  10. Close...Buttons & Mindy were from Animaniacs. ;)

    ReplyDelete

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