At the risk of getting . . .

all kinds of hateful comments, I'm doing it anyway! What am I doing you ask?

Venting about Stuff Mart! (As I like to call it - anybody else seen the Madame Blueberry Veggie Tales episode about the Stuff Mart - if not, it's worth a look. You'll see the resemeblance to Wal Mart right away!)

So what happened to make me want to vent, let me tell you how my evening went.

DH and I, along with our two kids, and my BIL and sister, went to Stuff Mart tonight to buy paint balls and an air tank for my paint ball gun. DH likes to shop there for paint ball stuff because he says it's cheaper. I keep telling him cheaper is relative and asked him not to make me go there because I hate it so much. After 3 days of nagging he got his way and we went to the Stuff Mart.

We were in the paint ball section and finally managed to snag an employee long enough to open up the locked case of air tanks so we could purchase one. When I asked him if I needed to pay him for it he says "no, you can take it to the front." You'll see as you read on why that was the first not so good idea of the day!

So we get what we want and manage to fight our way through the crap all over to the front of the store. There's 3 registers open, we get in line and we were the 3rd customer. After a few minutes we realize we're not going anywhere. So we finally hear the checker say she's waiting for management approval for a check. We look at the other lines - they're all stopped cold also. The checkers are all waiting for management. FIFTEEN minutes later the manager comes and approves the check. The line is finally moving, we get to our turn and you guessed it - the air tank won't ring up! Why? Because there is no bar code on it because it's kept in a locked case!! So she wants to call the manager!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I stupidly decided to run back to sporting goods thinking I could just pay quickly for it back there. Well there wasn't anybody at the counter so of course I had to find him. Finally explain to him that I have to pay him for the tank. He goes over to the tanks and stands there for a good 3 minutes starting at them trying to figure out which one is which. I finally went over, pointed to the price tag and told him use that one.

So he goes to the register and starts trying to ring me up. The register prompts him with this question "cust waiting ? (0-9)" - well, me not being an idiot it seems pretty clear to me that you need to put in either a 0 or any other digit up to 9. So he pushes buttons, it beeps, he pushes more buttons, it beeps, he pushes more buttons, it beeps. I finally say "try pressing 9, and then enter." Waaahhhllaaaahhhhh! It's moved on. He enters the dept. #, tries ringing up the tank, item not found, tries again, item not found, tries again, item not found.

Me again not being an idiot and having some retail experience say "isn't there a miscellaneous code that you can put in there for items not found." All of you out there who worked retail know there is! But his answer - "I'll have to call the manager."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After he walked around for a few minutes and didn't find one, then called and one didn't show up right away, I said forget it - told him to keep his air tank and that I was going to Sports Chalet and finding somebody who could actually help me.

I already hated Wal Mart - it wasn't going to take much for me not to step foot into the place again. Well after getting in line at 7:50pm and not leaving the store until 8:35pm - to buy 1 air tank, 3 boxes of paintballs, an outlet strip, and a box of detergent - I'm over it. No amount of money I save is worth the hassle of the Stuff Mart!!

Spend more, Shop Target!!!