In December of 1998 I was walking around Electronics with my daughter when I heard my name paged to please pick up Line 1 at a courtesy phone. I walk over to the checkout counter in electronics and as always there is a phone there facing towards the customers for customer use. I tell Shirley I've been paged to pick up line one and I pick up the phone. Shirley growls, "Are you an employee?" I tell her I'm not and she tells me that I can't use the phone then. Well that's a really cruddy attitude but I tell her no problem and I walk over to the toy department and pick up line one.

Later I find the CD I'm looking for and go to the counter to pay for it. I use my ATM debit card and request $20 cash back in addition to my purchase. Shirley forgets to give me my cash and I forget to ask for it, a mistake on both of our parts. I discover this about 30 minutes later when I'm in another store and don't have any cash. So I drive back to Wal-Mart and bravely fight my way through the Christmas crowds and back to electronics.

Shirley is still there so I politely show her my receipt and tell her I forgot to collect my $20. Her reply is "Yeah right, I've only had one debit transaction today and that was by an older man." I'm shocked - I have no clue why she's treating me this way but we start to argue about it. She says I must have made my purchase at another department. I show her the receipt and ask her if this is her employee number and she confirms it is. Then she tries to tell me that it couldn't have been today so I have to show her where the date is on the receipt. By this time one of the managers is with us and Shirley swears to the manager that she didn't ring up my purchase and she would have remembered me. I tell her that the reason she doesn't remember me is because she didn't make any eye contact with me during the entire transaction.

Anyway, I finally get my $20 after the manager tells Shirley that she'll cover it if her drawer comes up $20 short and the manager doesn't even apologize to me for Shirley's actions. The only reason I can think Shirley had such a big problem with me is that she pocketed the money and was really bummed out that she wasn't going to get away with it.

A few months later in 1999 I went to Wal-Mart to exchange something. The way the exchange counter is set up is a little hard to explain in writing. It's kind of a "V" shape with a couple registers on each side of the V. When I went in there were two lines on the left side of the counter so I stepped into line with everyone else, holding my daughter and waiting my turn. As I was standing there I notice that the customers are actually supposed to stand back right in front of the "V" and wait their turn to be called on either side of the counter. But the sign explaining this at the time way tiny and nobody else saw it either so I continue standing in line with everyone else. A few minutes later some lady walks up and stands where she is supposed to but as the lines move on the cashiers ignore her since she's the only one obeying the sign.

Time drags on a little more (lots of Christmas returns) and just as it's about my turn the cashier announces that she's closing her register and that we should all go to the other side of the counter to be waited on. Doh! So the few customers that are left walk over to the right side of the counter to stand in line some more. Finally the lady waiting where she's supposed to decided to join in with us and gets in the back of that line. Then she starts getting kind of loud about it and whining at how we all cut in front of her. I stiffle a laugh and hand the cashier my items to be refunded. This is where it gets kind of interesting.

The loud lady behind me is just babbling on and on and talking about how she works at the Jerseyville store and she knows how to read the signs, blah blah blah. She's kind of having a conversation with one of the refund desk ladies named Peggy. Peggy motions her over and when the lady comes over Peggy leans over and whispers to the lady, "If you work at Jerseyville then you probably know that our customers don't know how to read then." and the lady laughs and takes her place back in line. I don't know if I was meant to hear that or not but I know the other cashier who was further away from me heard it.

Finally as I'm talking with the other refund desk lady about my return I'm explain that I need a refund on part of it and want to exchange the other part or something (I can't remember exactly what I was doing) but the lady tells me that I won't be able to do it that way because of our policy and I reply, "Well you're probably right, I'm just a customer and us customers don't know how to read." I would almost say that was rude of me because this lady had nothing to do with what Peggy said but ah well. Both cashiers give me a dirty look, I take care of my refund and get going. As I'm walking away I hear the one say to the other, "You really shouldn't say stuff like that where customers can hear you." I don't know if I have super hearing or if Wal-Mart employees are just dense.

This story has kind of a happy ending though. I continue into the store, buy a few things and check out at the front registers. As I'm leaving I see a store manager talking to Peggy at the front of the store right by the registers. As I get closer I see that Peggy is crying and the manager looks very unhappy with her. So as I walk by I catch her eye, say "See ya Peggy" and smile at her. A few weeks later I return to the store and she's still working at the refund desk so I guess insulting customers isn't grounds for being fired there.

So you still aren't convinced that I have terrible luck at Wal-Mart? I returned to the store once again in late 1999 and as we were at the registers (me, my wife and 3 year old daughter) an employee needs to get past us so she SHOVES Emily (my daugter) out of the way. I'm sure it was by accident but she had to realize what she did and didn't even stop or say she was sorry.

Ironicly, as we got outside to leave there were the usual people working for organizations begging for money and a man asked me if I'd like to donate money to help stop child abuse. I told him that I thought child abuse was hilarious and couldn't support something like that. Then I started pretend-punching Emily as we left. Then I got a real punch from my wife Colleen. Help stop spouse abuse!