Back to Walmart Again

I am loathe to say "kudos Walmart" for reasons discussed elsewhere in this Journal. However, among it's 1.5 million employees, they have some very nice ones, and I met one today.

I had just come through the Express *20 items or less* checkout at a speed that made me wonder if I was in the wrong store. Our store is noted for the inability of it's patrons to count. Indeed, Tulsa Public Schools, which do a mediocre job at best, need really to concentrate on math. The inhabitants of this fine city appear to stop counting at 20, quite regardless of the actual number of items in their shopping cart, and completely oblivious to the inconvenience they are causing to those customers who actually did pass 1st Grade Math .... but I digress.

The total for my 13 (count 'em) items was over $73. This is unusual for me so I stopped to look at the ticket. The DVD I had picked up (on a shelf marked $9.75) had rung up at $20 ... ho hum!

Now the Customer Service desk at Walmart is a place I try to avoid much in the way one tries to avoid contracting anthrax .... it happens, but not because you didn't take precautions. It is a place usually reserved for the surliest, most entitled of the 1.5 million that Walmart can muster. Whatever your point you often end up feeling like a shop-lifter, fraudster or worse.

"Yes Sir, how can I help" I was immediately on my guard, but decided to play along. I explained to the lady that the DVD appeared to not have charged correctly.

"Oh", she said "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. We watched that in High School. I didn't even know who Sidney Poitier was at the time. Just recently we watched In The Heat Of The Night".

"Did you", she continued, "get it from the Black History shelf?".

I replied that I hadn't; I was a little astonished that a Walmart in Tulsa even HAD a Black History shelf.

She asked me how much I wanted to pay for the movie. I told her that I thought the price was $9.75, and even acknowledged that I realised that movies were sometimes put on the wrong shelves .... probably by the same person who dumped their McDonalds trash in the Lighting Section.

She promptly charged me $9.75, no quaestions asked, and gave me the change. Thank you :)

This kind and entertaining lady will never last.