Why I hate Wal-Mart

Every time I go there, I swear I'll never go back. And before Maggie came along, I had seriously gone four or five years without setting foot inside a Wal-Mart. Based on today's visit, here are the reasons I hate this store:

• The people are rude -- both the employees and clientele, though the other shoppers win the Rude Award hands-down.
• Whenever I go, no matter the day of the week or the time of the day, the store is either 1) horrifically crowded, or 2) being restocked, and the aisles are crammed with pallets of shrink-wrapped food.
• They don't sell exercise DVD's (that I could find anyway ... and I looked seemingly everywhere).
• They don't sell cage-free eggs (this I verified).
• It's the only place I know where it's acceptable to wear a thong hanging out the top of your jeans -- and you work there.
• Whenever I go, it's because I need something I can't find anywhere else. And like clockwork, Wal-Mart is always out of the one thing I couldn't find anywhere else. Today it was Horizon organic milk in the juicebox-like packs.
• And in a swimmingly wonderful finish to my shopping experience today, a 45-year-old man wearing a fluorescent orange t-shirt and baggy denim shorts hanging down to his calves approached me as I was loading the stuff into my car. He first asked me to "vote" for him, then started the first lines of a magazine sales spiel. What part of you thinks it's OK to stop a female alone with a (tired and crying) small child in a parking lot, cart full of groceries, and sell her magazines?!? I tried to decline politely, but when he wouldn't take no for an answer, I got rude. And I don't feel bad about it.

HATE IT.

And don't get me started on Wal-Mart's hypocrisy, the pressure to move production oversees, or the driving independent merchants out of business. (For more interesting reading, click here.)