Walmart Trip report part deux

Last night I was playing tennis with Mert and 10pm. At 9:30 I was on my way to the Livonia Y. The only convenient places to buy tennis balls was Walmart or Meijer. Since Walmart is a little more convenient to 96, I decided to roll the dice once again. What followed was the Walmart I’ve grown to know and love.

Got in there, and guided by intuition I found the sporting goods (mind you, I was not guided by any signs). Got the balls I needed and I was up and running. Apparently the store closes at 10pm, and in order to get a headstart on their night operations, there were large cardboard boxes of stock on the floor of nearly every aisle. Cute.

Got to the checkout and this is where the fun begins. I have two cans of tennis balls, so I’m looking for a quick checkout. Of the 2 aisles open (aisles 8 and 22 for those keeping track, on opposite sides of the checkout area), aisle 22 is the “speedy” checkout. Both lines are long. I am the 8th person in line. Apparently they have not heard of the self checkout…although I have a hunch that given the clientele as well as the staff, this would be a huge bottleneck. Anyways, as the line is SLOWLY moving forward, I notice the woman in front of me had a damn near full cart. I try to draw attention to this by looking at the cart, looking at the sign, looking back at the cart and laughing, but she is oblivious. I am hesitant to say anything to her, for fear of her (A) popping a cap in my ass, or (B) sitting on me.

The “Speedy” checkout has a clearly marked sign saying “10 items or less”. I attempt to count as she is unloading onto the conveyor that will only comfortably hold 2 items. I get to 28, with a tolerance of +5/-2 items. The cashier says, “You have more than 12 items.”, apparently completely inventing the 12 item rule, and the woman (you can imagine what she looks like) says something about them only having 2 aisles open, which apparently allows you to skirt any limits that said Walmart imposes.

This experience was a flat 1 on a scale of 1-10, they could have been giving the tennis balls away and it wouldn’t have been worth the aggravation.

On a tennis note, despite not playing in 4-5 years, having a raquet with less tension then desired, and having a grip crumble in my hands (apparently raquet grips tend to degrade when in the basement for years), I easily handled Mert 6-0, and was up 3-1 in the 2nd set when the Y closed.