fiasco at the Wal*Mart

Last Saturday we had a �date�, if that�s what you�d like to call it. Basically, a trip out, sans Clare. This, as most of you know, never happens. Around 9.30 at night we went to one of the local Wal*Marts by my parent�s house to pick up some stain remover for laundry. (The previous night I had a Starbuck�s Mocha and a few droplets had spilled onto my pants, and washing did not remove the stain.) So off we went, knowing it was probably a mistake�Wal*Mart on a Saturday night, two days after Christmas�.it would be an adventure nonetheless. We spent about an hour perusing the aisles, seeing how trashed the place was, having fun looking at all of the freaks around us, and seeing if there were any kinds of bargains. (Nope, not a one. Well none that appealed to us, anyhow.)

Seeing how late it had gotten, we hurried over to the laundry supplies aisle. Since it was after 10 pm, the night stockers had come out, quickly filling up the aisles in the food section with their dollies of merchandise. Well the aisle we needed to go down had about five stockers on it, and a giant dolly right in the middle. I had to turn sideways to get by, and as Greg made his way past the area, his leg knocked over a bottle of Palmolive with baking soda dishwashing detergent, that had been left on the floor. Apparently it was previously damaged and some brilliant person felt that would be the ideal place to put such an item. The contents splattered onto his pants leg (thank goodness it missed those new Birkenstocks!). He was worried it would bleach the material, but I informed him it had baking soda as a prime ingredient so he *should* be safe. We reported the incident to the cashier who was in definite zombie-mode. She didn�t care. The place was packed with shoppers and we certainly didn�t see a manager floating around.

We washed the pants, to no avail, and by 7am the next morning they were certainly covered in bleached-out spots. Now this might not seem like a big deal to most of you, but right now we don�t have spare money to run out and replace a good pair of pants. Eating is a little more important on our agenda. So I called up the Wal*Mart in question and spoke to a manager, recounted the entire event, and he was, shall we say, unimpressed. He was actually downright gruff and nasty to me. He informed me �This is like if you fell in the store, hurt yourself, and reported it four days later.� Ehm, no it�s not. It was 8am, not even twelve hours after said incident, and they are at fault because:

1)businesses shouldn�t block aisles to where customers can hardly get through. (good thing we weren�t heavy people)

2)employees should ensure damaged bottles of liquid are nowhere near the stepping feet of customers. (did the night stockers who obviously put it there think it was ok??)

So the manager repeated his defense about three more times to me before saying there was nothing they could do and that was that. Well no it wasn�t. By that point it was the principle of the matter. I found the Wal*Mart website, and wrote a nice descriptive letter of the incident and the response of both the cashier and manager when told about it. Then submitted it. I wish I had the letter word for word, but it had to be written in one of those �comment� boxes on their site. Since I was on my parent�s computer I didn�t want to copy and paste, save, etc. You get my point. At any rate, this went to the corporate office.

I expected to possibly hear something maybe by the end of January. What with the holidays, people getting back into the groove of work, catching up, etc. Well yesterday afternoon the phone rang. It was the Wal*Mart in Virginia. A different manager had a copy of the letter from the corporate office, was VERY kind and offered to mail us a $50 gift card on behalf of Wal*Mart and could we please accept their apologies. Ha.

I can�t really boycott Wal*Mart since that is one of the few options we have currently to shop at around here.(We utilise them for toiletry items, school supplies, dog treats, etc. since their hours are a bit more flexible than the commissary's on base.) I�m telling you, we are far removed from civilisation. But I am pleased to see they saw the errors of their ways and decided to compensate us. In the meantime, when we get back on track, Greg will have to get a replacement pair of pants through oldnavy.com.