Why Wally World
Yesterday I took a mental health day. I called my daughter in sick (a horrible lie since she was in Yakima with her father), and set about doing all those things I have been putting off since I moved in. First I went through all my digital prints and picked out around 20 to get developed in various sizes. I had no idea how easy Wal-marts site would be and cheap too. I ordered around 20 prints and they were ready in an hour for only a nominally more expensive price. I am completely sold. After the three years of owning a digital camera and taking almost exclusively digital pictures, this was the first time I actually got prints made.
Then I went to Wal-mart to pick them up and buy some stuff for the new apartment. And yes, I do know that Wal-mart is evil. They pay their employees slave wages, treat their suppliers like crap, and put small businesses in the red, but I am poor and with that poorness comes the need for crappy, cheaply made goods, which just happen to run rampant in the Discount Devil. I bought eight attractive black picture frames for $24, the same price you could spend on a single frame anywhere else. I picked up a computer desk, a vacuum, some $3 shirts for Audrey, and eyed some beautiful 32 in. flat screen TVs (if anyone wants to buy me one, let me know).
Usually going to Wal-mart itself makes the effort to save money not worth it. From the long drive, to the insane amount of time it takes to find a parking spot in BFE, to the crowds, oh the crowds (how I hate Wal-mart shoppers), and the never-ending lines that weave their way through the store due to that reject who asks a million questions about why that is ringing as that price instead of this price and asking for this to be taken off cause it’s such a waste of money and the idiotic checker who can’t figure out how to use the scanner, though it is his/her sole task. I generally leave the Behemoth vowing never to return because, though I just saved $20 dollars, there are just too many things enticing me to pull out my hair. But then there is the beauty of going to Wal-mart on a weekday morning. What a concept! There is no one there. I practically owned to store. I was able to bankrupt the world in peace all while saving myself the equivalent of a tank of gas (for my SUV, which is also contributing to our reliance on the Middle East for oil and Bush’s crusade to drill in protected lands).
Sure I would love to patronize the mom n’ pop store, but if it is between getting something for $24 or a comparable item for much less, my bank account dictates my purchase. So tell me, is it better to infuse my money into the economy by buying what I can afford or…ah heck, my money’s getting spent either way, so that illustration won’t work. And I thought I was about to say something so intelligent, too.
It was a great day, though. I put my lovely pictures in my bargain frames and arranged them on my beautiful iron etagere, which Sam got for free from a designer, then I attempted to put together the computer desk, though cart is really a more appropriate term. I soon discovered, however that a flat head screwdriver is no substitute for a Phillips head, neither is a butter knife, neither are scissors, neither are...well you get the point. So the thing sat half-made while I worked on other projects instead of sitting idly waiting for Cy to bring me one. Silly thing arrived an hour or so later and brought the thing you insert into one of those convertible majobbies, without bringing the convertible majobby, so we were back to square one. That is until he realized, duhn duh duh duhn, that he had a Phillips head in his car the whole time, block head. So we made quick work of the computer cart and got to moving the piano here, the entertainment center there and so on. Poor thing had no idea I was going to make him do so much work.
At least now I know that I need some tools. I wonder when I will get another mental health day, cause those 2 dollar Wal-mart wrenches are calling to me.
Then I went to Wal-mart to pick them up and buy some stuff for the new apartment. And yes, I do know that Wal-mart is evil. They pay their employees slave wages, treat their suppliers like crap, and put small businesses in the red, but I am poor and with that poorness comes the need for crappy, cheaply made goods, which just happen to run rampant in the Discount Devil. I bought eight attractive black picture frames for $24, the same price you could spend on a single frame anywhere else. I picked up a computer desk, a vacuum, some $3 shirts for Audrey, and eyed some beautiful 32 in. flat screen TVs (if anyone wants to buy me one, let me know).
Usually going to Wal-mart itself makes the effort to save money not worth it. From the long drive, to the insane amount of time it takes to find a parking spot in BFE, to the crowds, oh the crowds (how I hate Wal-mart shoppers), and the never-ending lines that weave their way through the store due to that reject who asks a million questions about why that is ringing as that price instead of this price and asking for this to be taken off cause it’s such a waste of money and the idiotic checker who can’t figure out how to use the scanner, though it is his/her sole task. I generally leave the Behemoth vowing never to return because, though I just saved $20 dollars, there are just too many things enticing me to pull out my hair. But then there is the beauty of going to Wal-mart on a weekday morning. What a concept! There is no one there. I practically owned to store. I was able to bankrupt the world in peace all while saving myself the equivalent of a tank of gas (for my SUV, which is also contributing to our reliance on the Middle East for oil and Bush’s crusade to drill in protected lands).
Sure I would love to patronize the mom n’ pop store, but if it is between getting something for $24 or a comparable item for much less, my bank account dictates my purchase. So tell me, is it better to infuse my money into the economy by buying what I can afford or…ah heck, my money’s getting spent either way, so that illustration won’t work. And I thought I was about to say something so intelligent, too.
It was a great day, though. I put my lovely pictures in my bargain frames and arranged them on my beautiful iron etagere, which Sam got for free from a designer, then I attempted to put together the computer desk, though cart is really a more appropriate term. I soon discovered, however that a flat head screwdriver is no substitute for a Phillips head, neither is a butter knife, neither are scissors, neither are...well you get the point. So the thing sat half-made while I worked on other projects instead of sitting idly waiting for Cy to bring me one. Silly thing arrived an hour or so later and brought the thing you insert into one of those convertible majobbies, without bringing the convertible majobby, so we were back to square one. That is until he realized, duhn duh duh duhn, that he had a Phillips head in his car the whole time, block head. So we made quick work of the computer cart and got to moving the piano here, the entertainment center there and so on. Poor thing had no idea I was going to make him do so much work.
At least now I know that I need some tools. I wonder when I will get another mental health day, cause those 2 dollar Wal-mart wrenches are calling to me.
posted by The Narcissist at 1:51 PM
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