My Adventures In WalMart

Had to go to WalMart today.  Why do people in the midwest refer to it as The WalMarts?  I don't get it.  But anyway, I got a call that my new glasses were ready and since I've been waiting for them for over a week, I was excited!  More than a week actually.  I've been waiting for their arrival at WalMart for a week but I've been waiting for new glasses for over a year.  I am so lazy.

Anyway, I got the call that they were ready and I raced over to WalMart on my lunch hour.  Once there, I tried on my new glasses and then went through all of the perfunctory tests to determine if they were correct.  I looked at all of the signs in the store and answered all of the technician's questions.  Every question she asked... I answered with a big, fat NO!

NO, I can not read the 'candy' sign.  NO, I can not read the fine print on the contract you've handed me.  NO, I am not happy with my new glasses.  I wasn't even sure they were mine, for Pete's sake.

The technician just could not believe that I couldn't see out of them and ... get this ... tried them on herself.  I don't know what she expected to see... or not see.

She then told me that I would have to return to the eye doctor (located in the store, but not where we were) to report this to her.  Of course the doctor was at lunch right then.  So, I said I would return to work and then return later to see the eye doctor but I would leave the glasses in the optometry section.  The technician said, "Why?"  I said, "Because they are wrong."  She said, "But you paid for them."  I said, "But I don't want them."

She made me take them.

Hours later, when my workday was finished, I returned to WalMart.  I found the eye doctor.  However, said eye doctor could not see me right away.  I would need to wait twenty minutes.  I decided to shop.  I was not going to leave until I had the eyeglass fiasco straightened out.  So I headed to the photo department to print up some pictures from Thanksgiving.  I spent longer than twenty minutes there, but it didn't matter... Ms. Eye Doctor was still not ready to see me.

Finally, my turn came.  And Ms. Eye Specialist sat me in her chair, looked at my old glasses and laughed.  Who tested your old glasses?

Uh, your assistant...

And why did I say you needed a negative correction in this eye?

Was I supposed to answer that?  Perhaps you had a bad day?  Perhaps you need glasses?

One hour later, I emerged from the doctor's office not feeling any too confident.  Why was everything so different this time around?  Why did I just go through a battery of tests that I hadn't gone through the first time around?  Why is my prescription world's different from the one I received just last week?  Why was the doctor talking like she was baffled by the whole thing?  Hmmmm, was I entering the Twilight Zone?

Nevertheless, I emerged with my new glasses prescription and I headed to the optometry section of the store and ... got to wait for another twenty minutes.  Yeesh.  Then I headed back to the photo department to pick up my newly printed photos.  I was supposed to wait one hour for them to be ready and yes, it had now been a full hour since I'd dropped them off.  And true to WalMart form, there was no one there to wait on me. 

Ten full minutes later, I circled the store in search of someone who could help me at the photo department.  My search turned up no one.  I then headed to the front to seek out someone, anyone, who cared.  I found a checker who said, "I'll call them."

"No, don't call them!  Their phone's been ringing off the hook and there's no one back there!"  He called anyway.  And no one answered.  Duh.  He then decided to page for a manager and I made the long trek back to the photo department to wait.  And I waited.  For no one.  No one came.  No one cared.

FINALLY, a managerish looking person came and huffed and puffed that I should demand even a moment of her precious time.  And my photos were handed to me.  And, I high-tailed it out of that store.  I'd been there long enough. 

I arrived at my car, started up the engine and realized that I'd left my eyeglass prescription back in the store.  I wanted to kick myself and I would have if I hadn't had a steering wheel locking me into place.

Out I climbed, back I walked, into the store I hurried.  It was darn near 6:20 now and I had arrived there around 4:15.  I was getting tireder by the minute. 

Got my prescription, raced home and was met by the sweetest, most loving, most understanding person in the world who said,

"What's for dinner?"

His black eye should heal in about a week.
.