Warner Todd Huston
WalMart cost me a speeding ticket
By Warner Todd Huston
I have decided that those left of sensible in America today are correct and have been so since the early 1900's at least. Corporations are evil, evil, evil. I am not sure how I missed this obvious truism all these years and I feel rather ashamed for it. Perhaps I had been lulled into a false sense of superiority by the overarching conservative News Media and their conspiratorial efforts to subdue all comers, perhaps I am simply not as smart as I thought I was. It's time I joined them.
Anyway, here is what happened:
I went to that bane of existence, that retail hell, that bastion of consumer excess (WalMart for those keeping score at home) on a Monday to purchase a new release of a major motion picture. It does not matter the title of the picture, it's the same plot as all the other newly released major motion pictures; boy meets girl, boy shoots everyone but her, girl is overcome with the vapors and falls for boy. And they are both underage. You know, art.
Anyway, I went up to the checkout to purchase my product. There I met the disinterested and mostly vacuous checkout girl who probably had never worked anywhere else in her life. It was plain she had just arrived at that gut wrenching time of realization that all of us reach in our first menial labor job. That time when the idea of having a job was no longer the fun, adventurous wonder we had imagined it to be only a scant few days earlier.
So, being the dutiful Consumer-American I paid for my item when the checkout girl pronounced the bill due. Naturally, I didn't go to WalMart only to buy that DVD movie and had picked up some candy, a pair of slippers, a CD of kid's music for my 7 year old, and a few other items of lesser importance but items I would assuredly die without purchasing. So, when the bill came due to the tune of 60 dollars and 70 cents I paid the girl and went on my way.
This may seem all totally normal to you. But when you consider that people in Ethiopia would give their three oldest children for a CD of kid's music, the same CD I was treating as if it were as common as dust, you might see the wretched consumer excess in which I was wallowing.
Anyway, after I went home and placed that DVD movie on the shelf next to my 50 other DVD movies I will never have the time to watch, I typically cast my signature blue WalMart bag on the floor where my wife discovered it — in her typical and exasperated manner. I imagine she was going to throw the bag away or stuff it inside another, larger WalMart bag to save for insulation or what ever she uses those great piles of bags stuffed into bags for. But, lucky, lucky for me, she peeked at the receipt first.
Now, that gets to another American tradition. The wife getting her chance to say, "You paid WHAT for WHAT?" as the husband gives that deer in the headlights, "But I had to have it" look. Anyway, that is another column. Note to self: throw away all receipts upon leaving store.
Anyway, my wife notices that the distracted checkout clerk had twice rung up the big new DVD release I had gone to WalMart to purchase. There it was in black and white on the handy dandy receipt. I had actually paid for this item twice. Those evil, evil corporate types ripped me off for double my purchase. I must have words with these people so that my wife can rest assured that I am a hunter, a man strong enough to take care of business. So I told her to call WalMart up so that, if they won't believe me that I really only bought one copy of that DVD, I wouldn't be wasting my time by going all the way back to the store for a refund.
They told the wife on the phone that they would be happy to return the overpayment. With that settled and my hunter role secure, I headed out. Now, I had to pick up my oldest son at school and would have to do the same for my youngest a half an hour later. So, I figured I had just enough time for travel to both schools and the WalMart in that half an hour window if I managed my time correctly. After all, men DO drive better. Right?
That is when it happened. I may have been pushing that gas pedal a tad harder than I should have to get all these things done in that half an hour, but I was assuredly in this situation because of that evil, evil corporation and its mishandling of my patronage. It simply wasn't my fault. I am the victim here. You guessed it. I got pulled over by the man. The cops. Those guys who only want to fatten the budget of the state. Speeding was the charge. Those were the facts maim.
Yep, if WalMart was competent, if America wasn't drowning in consumer excess and if our young people just realized how lucky they were to have that menial job I never would have been thrust into this horrible position. I would never have been struck with a 100 dollar fine in my efforts to get that 21dollar refund at the WalMart. It's all corporate America's fault. If there were no WalMart I would have gone on my merry way without the approbation of this policeman. I would never been subjected to his admonition of, "Why WERE you speeding?" I never would have been forced to listen to his talking down to me as if he was the Kindergarten teacher and I the boy, kicking his small gym shoe at the floor in class. The whole system is rigged against me!
Now that I am a neo-Liberal I know now that WalMart is at fault. That's all there is to it.
Well, it certainly ain't MY fault! Come ON! This is America darn it!
© Warner Todd Huston
I have decided that those left of sensible in America today are correct and have been so since the early 1900's at least. Corporations are evil, evil, evil. I am not sure how I missed this obvious truism all these years and I feel rather ashamed for it. Perhaps I had been lulled into a false sense of superiority by the overarching conservative News Media and their conspiratorial efforts to subdue all comers, perhaps I am simply not as smart as I thought I was. It's time I joined them.
Anyway, here is what happened:
I went to that bane of existence, that retail hell, that bastion of consumer excess (WalMart for those keeping score at home) on a Monday to purchase a new release of a major motion picture. It does not matter the title of the picture, it's the same plot as all the other newly released major motion pictures; boy meets girl, boy shoots everyone but her, girl is overcome with the vapors and falls for boy. And they are both underage. You know, art.
Anyway, I went up to the checkout to purchase my product. There I met the disinterested and mostly vacuous checkout girl who probably had never worked anywhere else in her life. It was plain she had just arrived at that gut wrenching time of realization that all of us reach in our first menial labor job. That time when the idea of having a job was no longer the fun, adventurous wonder we had imagined it to be only a scant few days earlier.
So, being the dutiful Consumer-American I paid for my item when the checkout girl pronounced the bill due. Naturally, I didn't go to WalMart only to buy that DVD movie and had picked up some candy, a pair of slippers, a CD of kid's music for my 7 year old, and a few other items of lesser importance but items I would assuredly die without purchasing. So, when the bill came due to the tune of 60 dollars and 70 cents I paid the girl and went on my way.
This may seem all totally normal to you. But when you consider that people in Ethiopia would give their three oldest children for a CD of kid's music, the same CD I was treating as if it were as common as dust, you might see the wretched consumer excess in which I was wallowing.
Anyway, after I went home and placed that DVD movie on the shelf next to my 50 other DVD movies I will never have the time to watch, I typically cast my signature blue WalMart bag on the floor where my wife discovered it — in her typical and exasperated manner. I imagine she was going to throw the bag away or stuff it inside another, larger WalMart bag to save for insulation or what ever she uses those great piles of bags stuffed into bags for. But, lucky, lucky for me, she peeked at the receipt first.
Now, that gets to another American tradition. The wife getting her chance to say, "You paid WHAT for WHAT?" as the husband gives that deer in the headlights, "But I had to have it" look. Anyway, that is another column. Note to self: throw away all receipts upon leaving store.
Anyway, my wife notices that the distracted checkout clerk had twice rung up the big new DVD release I had gone to WalMart to purchase. There it was in black and white on the handy dandy receipt. I had actually paid for this item twice. Those evil, evil corporate types ripped me off for double my purchase. I must have words with these people so that my wife can rest assured that I am a hunter, a man strong enough to take care of business. So I told her to call WalMart up so that, if they won't believe me that I really only bought one copy of that DVD, I wouldn't be wasting my time by going all the way back to the store for a refund.
They told the wife on the phone that they would be happy to return the overpayment. With that settled and my hunter role secure, I headed out. Now, I had to pick up my oldest son at school and would have to do the same for my youngest a half an hour later. So, I figured I had just enough time for travel to both schools and the WalMart in that half an hour window if I managed my time correctly. After all, men DO drive better. Right?
That is when it happened. I may have been pushing that gas pedal a tad harder than I should have to get all these things done in that half an hour, but I was assuredly in this situation because of that evil, evil corporation and its mishandling of my patronage. It simply wasn't my fault. I am the victim here. You guessed it. I got pulled over by the man. The cops. Those guys who only want to fatten the budget of the state. Speeding was the charge. Those were the facts maim.
Yep, if WalMart was competent, if America wasn't drowning in consumer excess and if our young people just realized how lucky they were to have that menial job I never would have been thrust into this horrible position. I would never have been struck with a 100 dollar fine in my efforts to get that 21dollar refund at the WalMart. It's all corporate America's fault. If there were no WalMart I would have gone on my merry way without the approbation of this policeman. I would never been subjected to his admonition of, "Why WERE you speeding?" I never would have been forced to listen to his talking down to me as if he was the Kindergarten teacher and I the boy, kicking his small gym shoe at the floor in class. The whole system is rigged against me!
Now that I am a neo-Liberal I know now that WalMart is at fault. That's all there is to it.
Well, it certainly ain't MY fault! Come ON! This is America darn it!
© Warner Todd Huston
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