Every time I have headed up to my local wal-mart shopping center this summer, the savings have NOT been worth the trip.
There are solicitors standing outside trying to sell me girl scout cookies or popcorn tins or otis spunkmeyer cookies or wrapping paper or are trying to get me to sign a petition for some political cause. The ones that REALLY tick me off are the jerks that are standing on the grass with a laundry basket full of puppies stuffed in the bottom of a shopping cart with a sign that says, “AKC Puppies! 250$”
The AKC could go a long, long way toward stopping this practice by sending out paperwork to every dipwad that has a puppy that informs them about local low cost spay and neuter programs in the area, but I’ll take the AKC to task some other time.
I’m here to talk to you about wal-mart.
I am FED up with being bombarded with some form of social ineptitude every time I walk through the doors of that place. It is NOT worth the 2$ I save on a 24 pack of soda there to put up with some dork shouting at me through my open car window “Come see the puppies!” or stopping me from getting inside the store and then stopping me from leaving.
Every summer it’s like this. I do NOT have these problems at Target. I do not have these problems at Shopko. Heck, I do not have these problems anywhere except wal-mart! The reason I don’t run into these problems elsewhere is because other stores are pro-active about telling these people that they cannot use their property as a place to sell their stuff. Heck, Target is VERY careful about not allowing any political cruft to color its company image. It just flat out refuses to tolerate anyone showing up on their front doors and as a result, the place is always a nicer shopping experience.
It’s not worth it.
I do NOT save enough money at Walmart over shopping at my local grocery to have to put up with someone shouting “Hey baby, hey baby yo!” at me when I walk through the freaking door.
I wish I could say that I will miss our business relationship but I’m just going to be honest.
I won’t.
Bullying isn’t a new problem.
When I was a teenager, I was bullied. My parents talked to the school. I talked to the school and told my teachers about the bullies in each of my classes in junior high. Every single time that someone called me a name, or hit me, they got caught doing it. Every single time, they got suspended and a phone call went to their parents that grounded them until the end of the school year.
Read more »
The last few years have been very cathartic for me. I have had to say good bye to a lot of things that I loved from the time that I was very small. My grandmother passed away last summer, just ten days before my birthday. I had to haul ass to get home to talk to her just one more time before she left and she didn’t even get to say good-bye to my children. That was how fast I had to move just to be with her. After I said good bye to her, I said good bye to the house where I grew up. The yard was overgrown, but the trees were still there and I could still see the scars on the old maple where my swing used to be. I never knew how my grandfather managed to get the swing put up there, or if he made my dad do it. When I was a kid, it didn’t matter. But then, in that moment all I could see was that the swing was long gone and the remnants of my childhood hung in that yard like ancient material, too strong and durable to give way, and at the same time so delicate and fragile that a single touch would rend all to dust.
Read more »
Tags: facebook, grandmother, grief, optimus prime, peter cullen, star trek
Essays, News from the Random, Rants, Tech, Writing and Reading | Random Gemini | 
July 9, 2009 10:17 am | 
Comments (1)
As a parent, I have tried very hard to make sure that I do not buy my kids clothes that I will be embarrassed about later. Still, somehow, things manage to find their way into their closets that makes me stop in my tracks in the midst of my morning routine, stare at them, and say “Oh no… you are NOT wearing that!”
At least three times a week, I say this to my daughter, who comes out of her bedroom wearing some tank top or otherwise sleeveless contraption that she wore in the 6th grade. Since she will be starting high school this year, those 6th grade tops really do not work for me and I keep trying to find them as they come down the chute and dispose of them, but somehow they keep passing me by. This morning was a shocker though. I never have to have this lecture with my son, but today he changed all of that. This morning, my son was wearing these pants that have a hole very near the crotch area. I stared at him and shook my head and said, “No, you will not wear those pants out of my house.”
Read more »
For those of us that tweet, getting new followers is a bittersweet event. There is that moment when you think, “Wow! Cool! Look at this! I’ve picked up ten followers in the last 24 hours! That’s great! People really care what I have to say!” and then you go to look at the people that followed you and you find that most of them are places like JimBob’sShoeShack, or Kedida’sLovelyHandMadeHandGunSales and you know… you have been plagued by the vague, but ever present.. twitspammer.
I’m sure that top 10 lists like this abound on the internet, and every blogger that tweets has written one, but I felt that for the sake of my sanity, I had to write mine as I blocked and reported ten spammers to twitter admins today alone. One of whom, only tweeted links to his ebay sales page… and somehow thought I would be interested in an xbox 360 controller, even though there is absolutely no mention of the console on my user info, or in my tweets.
Read more »
It is not often that I find myself inventing new words in the English language. I know lots of people that are fond of inventing words that are appropriate to the situation. My grandmother is fond of “hookenpocky” to describe when someone is sick and you have no idea what’s wrong with them. My husband, having spent several years of his youth in the South frequently rolls out the word “aight” which isn’t really a word, but is a contraction of the two words, “all” and “right”. For years, my friends and I have used “w00t!” to express celebration, but only after someone else coined it.
I’m not responsible for coining this one either, but it makes sense and I think we should consider adding it to our mental vocabulary because seriously folks, it is a legal word and it is the past tense form of “shit”. It is also infinitely more amusing and sounds hilarious when you say it, unlike the present tense form of the word.
Read more »
I’m not just talking about the thieves that break into your car and steal your stuff, though I can’t abide those either. I’m also referring to those who do not give credit where credit is due. If I borrow a graphic from your website, I am going to ask your permission to use it before I download it and place it on my site, and I’m also going to provide a link to your website because you deserve credit for your original works. Likewise, I expect the same courtesy from others who reference my works. I should at least get an reference in the bibliography.
Read more »
Let’s be realistic about how we get involved in relationships that work.
We find someone that we like the look of, we learn if they have things in common with us, and if we find enough commonality to build a foundation upon, we can have a successful relationship with that person. This is true of friendship, family and romance. It’s actually really very simple, but people get so wound up about romance and dating that they can’t see the forest for the trees.
Read more »
When I see things like this, I have to wonder what this says about America to the rest of the globe. The top ten yahoo searches of 2008 start off with Britney Spears and it only gets worse from there.
No wonder other countries hate us. We’re a bunch of losers with boring lives that have nothing better to do besides throw our money at mentally ill super stars, wrestling programs that we are well aware are fake, and of all things.. really crappy Japanese anime. (Sorry Viz, but your American production of Naruto is lame with a capital LAME).
Subscribe