At Least He Won't Be Sleeping on the Floor

Still no pictures of the green walls... Kristen is lax in her duties.

But in the meantime, I'd like to continue my tirade against Wal-Mart.

You see, I'm going to admit something that I'm not proud of. It has torn my insides apart and keeps me up at night in fitful contemplation. Okay, here it goes...

We bought our crib at Wal-Mart.

Yes, yes. I said it. After proclaiming many times that we would never shop there again, we turned around and bought the Barna-bed and dresser from them. The thing is, we did research, we read reviews, we looked at safety, and compared prices, and the cribs there are what made sense. (We bought this one -- I don't know if it's "mod" [most businesses don't really understand what modern is, I think], but it will look cool in his bedroom.)

There are some very neat and hip cribs out there that cost more than $1,000 (for example, this one is quite cool, but my god it's $1,700!!!), but I'm not sure why you'd want to buy that. Cribs are pretty much universally safe nowadays (they have to be, with the cost of lawsuits and recalls), and this is not an heirloom that we're going to pass down from generation to generation (in fact, it's probably not a great idea to do that anyway).

Back to Wal-Mart, or as we like to call it, the eigth circle of hell. You see, they don't actually sell the crib at the store. You order it online and then they ship it to the nearest store and you can pick it up. This "site-to-store" program should, in principle, work. It does for other businesses, such as Blockbuster or Borders or whatnot. Of course, at those places, they usually hire people that usually have some sort of customer relationship skills.

No, not at Wal-Mart.

So, on Tuesday, after work, we drive out to the store (right near the Leaning Tower of Niles, remember?), head back to where the site-to-store pick-ups are to be made, and press the appropriate button.

And then we wait. And wait. And wait.

Occasionally, people would pass by us and page for the appropriate person to arrive, but they never actually showed up. The "back room", as they all referred, seemed to be a vast and desolate place where employees can never truly escape. At least that's what I think, because nobody seemed to want to come out of the warehouse door. (Now the break-room door, that was used quite a bit. Slackers.) We called the store number to ask for a manager, but were put on hold, and after 5 minutes, we just hung up.

Here's the crazy thing. The same people would pass by us time and time again, and they would just ignore us or smile. A couple of people couldn't help us because they were going on their break. But instead of getting someone who wasn't on their break, they just kept on walking.

Eventually, we left because Kristen nearly passed out from hunger (a slight exaggeration). We drove over to a slightly creepy restaurant, ate some sandwiches, and returned to Wal-Mart. This time, Kristen and I split up, me in the back of the store paging and paging for help, and she at the front in the customer service line.

Eventually, someone came and helped me (and another couple -- who had twin infant girls), but even then, it was nearly a half hour until the packages came out from their warehouse. (I was also told that someone would be available to help me put the boxes in the car, but they, too, never arrived, so I did it myself.)

So as we drove away -- at 9 o'clock -- we made a blood oath to never, ever, EVER, shop there again.

Unless, of course, one of the things we bought was defective. Then we have to go back and do it all over again. God help us.