My First Trip to Wal-Mart
Note: I actually started composing this entry on Saturday, the day of the visit.
I had a long-standing agreement with myself to not go there but I was bored enough to see what it is all about. As I walked in, there were a fair amount of people leaving and it was still somewhat crowded inside. I was in there for under 30 minutes and remained on the first floor of an unknown count of floors, so there’s no data to show if it gets better or worse with increased altitude.
My perception of the place was somewhat misplaced, though. Despite all of the negative prejudices I had, I did not anticipate the unsanitary and chaotic conditions inside. All of the politically- and humanitarian-inspired complaints against them are really not that interesting when everything you touch or breathe might land you in an infectious disease quarantine (which may exist on one of the other floors).
In addition to that, here’s some more notables:
There were no greeters at the entrance but there was a single receipt-checker at the exit.
They had an exaggerated artificial butter popcorn smell thickening the air. It was stronger and more overtly artificial than any known movie theater or microwave variety.
Most of the clothes seemed to be extra large (or even larger). In the undershirts aisles (where I do most of my clothes purchasing) there was only one row that contained small shirts and often the smallest size was medium. After that, there were several rows of XL and XXL.
When paying for my crap, the receipt printer didn’t work and the human attached to the receipt printer’s only course of action was a repeated opening and closing of the printer followed by multiple arrhythmic keypad presses. After a few minutes the receipt came out a bit crooked.
My overall characterization of the store is that it is just what you would get if you stacked multiple Target locations on each other and evenly spread the contents of a few of those special garbage cans you see at medical facilities throughout the interior.