I hate Walmart.

The thing is I never remember that I hate Walmart until I step inside one to shop for something thinking I can kill four birds with one stone.

It's not that they sell some serious crap. It's not that they get a lot of crying screaming kids and hillbillies... it's that everytime I walk in a Walmart I want to jam a jumbo can of creamed corn down every single persons throat (after I have removed the head with a super size roll of dental floss and two sccrewdrivers worked up MacGyver-style into a garrote).

For one, it's that they all scream incessantly at each other on the intercom. They can't freaking shut up, why even HAVE music (not that the music is good anyway)? If they aren't demanding they call one another, they are calling for surveillance over certain departments. That's nice and secretive eh? Most of the time it's to FOLLOW someone who bought something in electronics out the front door. Nice to know how much Walmart trusts it's customers.

Now, you never hear a THING overhead at Target - they use walkie talkies. They want extra help on the regiters? They send it out on the talkies. They need someone in toys? Talkies. Everyone on the floor has one. Some I've seen even have ear pieces plugged in them.

It's seriously a peaceful shopping environment, you lose you self at Target. It's almost damned therapeutic. Me heart Target so muches. I think their quiet shopping atmosphere is one reason I blow so much money there. I don't even get a inkling of time passing, it's very relaxing to be there. No hassle, no hustle. It's a quiet pristine shopping bubble of retail joy.

It's very unlike that at Walmart where I find may self making faces of unease at the voice tersely yelling for Womens to call Ext. 243 for the third time in five minutes (and increasingly more obviously pissed each time). Or hear that definitely managerial tone calling for a certain girl with some barely hidden rage to report to the office. What did she do I wonder? Take 5 minutes too long on a break? NOT clock out before being forced to work overtime?

I know I never want to work there I'd end up buying a gun two departments away and going apeshit at all the speakers within a week.

DEAR WALMART: A CUSTOMER SHOULD NEVER SEE/HEAR THE INNER WORKINGS OF YOUR STORE! DO YOU HEAR ME WALMART!? YOU SELL WALKIE TALKIES! USE THEM!

If it's not the employees on air bickering and bitching making me cringe, it's the customers who trail you so closely you think you need to buy some lubricant. If you DARE stop your course to say, look at an item, you have three people behind you grousing almost silently about the course diversion. The aisles are narrow so you don't have room to say stop the cart then walk ahead and look at items, there not room for the housewife to pass you without you taking a chest dive for the rack.

At the store near my mom's house, the shoes for sizes 9-12 (the most common shoe sizes right now, BTW) share an aisle with the main warehouse double doors. I've tagged along with her a couple times now and I find you literally can't try a pair of shoes on without being forced to move for a cart filled with boxes coming in or out of those doors. You can't step back into the aisle to look at shoes at large for fear of being run down, you have to stand with your hips almost IN a box of shoes aND crane your neck to shop for shoes. After it became obvious that there was no room for me to look at shoes as well, I moved to the just other side of the aisle lurking in between rack os children's clothes.

It took us 40 minutes to find a SINGLE pair of shoes for my mom since we spent over 3/4's of that time dodging employees. if left alone this task might have taken ten minutes.

At one point I barked at an employee (who had passed us brusquely the fifth time) that I was sorry my shopping was interrupting him and maybe he should see if there was another door instead. Next time I go in there I'm walking through that door and asking for a manager, and I'm making him shop for shoes in that aisle and not letting him leave till he obviously notices how awful the layout it is.

I have to shop there from time to time though as now they are the ONLY fabric store in town. The Handcock Fabric closed down earlier this year after losing their lease, and there was a Walmart in town, so why bother moving? So, now, if I need sewing stuff it's there I must go or drive three exits away (which I do if it's something other than basic thread and needles or cheap fabric lookielooing)

I feel hustled, hurried, hastled and generally unwelcome with every single step I walk in a Walmart. How do all these millions of people stand it? I would shop at 3am but OUR store isn't open past 11. (And besides Walmart past 11pm is a scarier place for a different reason.)

WALMART BAD! WALMART DIE!

/rant over.

In light of a new independent study, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a conservation organization, is urging people to drink tap water, which is often as good as bottled water, for the benefit of the environment and their wallets.

Starbucks Delocator is afraid to use it's real name.

Although, somehow, her idea of simple includes owning a Tivo.

I don't even have cable.

"But now it seems as if being germaphobic, even to the point of OCD-like symptoms, or being diagnosed with OCD, is almost in style and hip. And I don't think it's because of the tv series Monk, I think the existence and popularity of the show reflects the widespread openness about these things. As perhaps does the recent popularity of the film The Aviator.
People like Howard Hughs, or the fictional character of Adrian Monk, are, of course, extreme examples. But the behaviours and feelings do seem more popular, more widespread, or at least more & more out in the open.

And this is demonstrated by the popularity of all the 'antibacterial' products on the market today. From antibacterial hand soap, antibacterial waterless hand washing lotion, antibacterial everything, and a plethora of disinfectant products.
There's more than just the basic Lysol products of my childhood.

And I was getting ready to watch a movie, and before I got the dvd player on, the commercial I saw seemed the very epitome of this target marketing.
It was a commercial for the new Dawn with Bleach Alternative, which is being touted as a breakthrough formula for removing what they called 'Unseen Food Residue', whatever that might be.
Actually, they explain on their web page that though dishes might 'appear to be clean', 'often there is food residue that is still left on the item'.
Well, damn, and all this time I should've been examining my dishes under a microscope!"