Have you ever been to a Walmart?

[dead0man]

I don't know about price (sh**t seems generally cheaper at Wal Mart to me), but I'd much rather go to Target than Wal Mart and it's almost all because Wal Mart customers suck and Targets suck a lot less.  The soccer moms at Target are even nice to look at sometimes.  I'm not saying everybody at Wal Mart is a living train wreck, that would be stupid and obviously wrong, but holy crap, the "people of Wal Mart" stereotype is very accurate.

I get pissed just going in the front doors of the closest one to me because 3/4s of the people leaving the place exit through the "enter" doors because they are 4 feet more convenient.

[angus]

the "people of Wal Mart" stereotype is very accurate.

I've noticed that aspect at the nearest walmart as well.  In fact, in both of the walmarts within a five-mile radius of me the people come off a bit seedy.  I didn't want to be as blunt as all that in my original posts for a couple of reasons:  (1) it is terribly elitist and (2) it is a phenomenon I've only noticed since I came to Lancaster.  Maybe Pennsylvanians and Nebraskans are alike in this regard.  (Let's not even get started on Kmart:  it is my custom to purchase my son a toy every time I go on a job interview.  When I interviewed here, five years ago, I bought him a LEGO toy at Kmart.  While shopping there, I suddenly experienced a gut-wrenching bowel movement, and I ran immediately to the men's room desperately clutching at my gut while clenching my cheeks, only to be bested by a long-haired black dude who darted into the men's room seconds before I did.  He locked the door--mind you, it wasn't the sort of smallish room with only a toilet and sink, the kind that begs the door to be locked, but rather the kind with two sinks and a partitioned stall next to a urinal, with a little mini-sliding lock on the stall door.  Five minutes later, when he finally emerged from the men's room door and I finally had my chance to enter the men's room, I headed straight for the stall only to notice a smell of burning alkaloid, and a little plastic baggie floating on the swirling surface of the recently-refreshed pond in the toilet bowl.  It was the sort of tiny ziploc baggie in which small rocks of crystalline compounds are sold.  I was flabbergasted.  Welcome to Pennsylvania, man.  He locked me, and my burning gut, out so he could smoke a bowl.  Dude, your hit was so much more important than my shit that I had to dance around for five minutes holding my gut whilst you smoked it?  Fair enough.  To the victor goes the spoils.  Ah, but let's be fair.  What Kmart isn't like that?)  Still, walmarts are usually bland.  At least in places other than this part of Pennsylvania they are.  But here, the Walmart crowd is pretty much the Kmart crowd.  In fact, my nearest Walmart is exactly two blocks from my nearest Kmart, whereas the Targets here are all out in exurbia with horse parking and such.  They're much cleaner (except, of course, for the soles of the shoes of the customers).  The stench of ungulate shit in the parking lot gives rise to the stench of new, plastic, sweatshop-made trinkets and hormone-fed meats once you enter the sliding-glass doors.  Maybe it's like that in your area as well.  In Iowa, I noticed that the Walmarts were usually within blocks of the Targest, and the crowds were pretty much the same.  Well-fed suburbanite shoppers shopping for strollers, car-seats, and diapers.  The only difference was the prices of the merchandise:  walmart was invariably less expensive.  Here, every walmart shopper smells of cigarettes and patchouli, and has the teeth of a meth addict.  

I guess they really do vary by region.  In Mexico City, it's actually a very upscale establishment.  There are security guards at all entrances, and the cars in the underground parking garage are some of the swankiest in the city.  Not that you can see them through the smog.  It's that way in the Walmarts I've been in China as well, except that the smog outside is a little thicker. 

Funny thing was, the question of whether walmarts vary by region was the central theme brought up by jmfcst some years ago on one of the many walmart threads we have had.  I'm convinced that they do.  Very much.  Here, they're basically as nasty as Kmart.  Sounds like that's the case in Omaha as well.

Well, my earliest experiences with walmart were those of a well-fed, well-bathed crowd of shoppers, of earning at least 12 dollars per share on my investment, and of buying Pampers at a cost that was around 75% or less than it cost at any other store, so I'm a fan of walmart, even though the walmart stores hereabouts are haunted by a vulgar set.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

^I am so glad I made this thread now.

[angus]

I think you forgot the bit about lifting a weight. 

[Mike Thick]

I think you forgot the bit about lifting a weight. 

I have to say, he's probably the funniest sock/troll I've seen around here so far.

[Frodo]

Yes, I stopped by the one in Gloucester on the Middle Peninsula on my way with my parents to the Christchurch School summer camp in the Virginia Tidewater region when I was 16 or 17.  

And that was my first and only time.  

[The Free North]

Nope (American).

I live in the NYC area.

[kcguy]

I'm from Missouri, so I went to my first Walmart some time in the 1980's, if not the 1970's.  I go to a traditional Walmart about once a month, and I buy groceries at a Neighborhood Market also about once a month.

I think it depends on the neighborhood.  I went to a Walmart in Phoenix, and my experience there was slightly creepy.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I don't reckon I've ever heard of the place.

[Torie]

The local Walmart here is actually more diverse in the SES of customers than most Walmarts. Maybe that has something to do with their being no Target around, and for a lot of goods, it is either the Walmart or the Lowe's next door. The one in the desert in CA in La Quinta (the only one in CA that has a full service grocery store), has a clientele that is almost all Mexican, and about half the staff does not speak English.

[/]

wait what is with you people

WALMART IS EVERYTHING TO ME

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah. When you only have a week or so to buy all the stuff you need to start living in a new country before classes begin, you can't really be picky.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

I never understood that fuss about this on this forum isn't it just like an average...supermarket?

I have the image of Walmart of something like Carrefour (French biggest chain), that is the average supermarket that will try to eat everything around it all around the world (Carrefour also being the second chain in the world, after, well, Walmart), that will try to screw its employes, that will lower anything about money the most they can except the benefit column, that will fire you if you take home a few salads that should have gone to bin, etc.

Well, what's wrong here?

Normal supermarket in a normal world.

Or unless it's more like Lidl or that insane Aldi, invading Europe from Germany (I wonder if they managed to enter UK though), with, yeah, still more to insaly lowering all what they can lower, more than the average supermarkets, we call those kinds 'low-cost' in France, using the English words.

So, in short, I don't mind going in average supermarkets such as Carrefour, and when money becomes short, I don't mind a Lidl (that one seems to have improved on several levels), but, yeah, I would avoid Aldi the most I can.

Wherever I go, I'll be the most fussy I can and the most wallet affords about what I put in the shopping bag.

Lately my couple is a Lidl + a little 'organic supermarket' to complete on some stuffs.

[angus]

insane Aldi

We like ALDI very much.  (here it's spelled like that)  There's an ALDI about three miles from my house that we go to about once per week, and there's another one about five miles away.  When I lived in Iowa, there was one only about a mile and a half from my house.  I sort of liked that one better.  ALDI is everywhere, I think.  I didn't know it was a German outfit, but I knew it was foreign.  Somehow, I thought it might be Italian.  (reminds me of vivaldi or garibaldi I suppose)  They do have lots of German, Belgian, and Italian stuff in them.  Also, Guatemalan and Honduran stuff.  Especially bananas.  Our bananas are almost always from Guatamala or Honduras.  Where are your bananas from?

We went to the nice Walmart yesterday, not the one closest to me, but the one on Lincoln Highway.  It's newer and a SuperWalmart.  Wonderful experience.  It was full of chain-smoking pregnant women, and large families usually featuring a mother shouting in Spanish to her many children, while swatting them.  And televisions.  Big ones!  My son and I were mesmerized by the back wall, which consisted of about fifty giant-screen televisions, all playing the same hockey game.  Some of them were as big as my bathroom wall and cost 2000 dollars.  I guess I haven't been to SuperWalmart in a while.  It was quite breathtaking to see a wall of screens like that.  Anyway, we bought a whole bunch of stuff, including a ripe chayote which we sliced last night and fried in oil with garlic and green onion (also from Walmart).  mmmmmmmm.
 

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yes although not in probably more than a decade.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Yea, but not for about 12-13 years.  I have no reason to experience Wal-Mart when I can get my needed wares elsewhere.  And there's nothing elitist about supporting my local small businesses. 

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Just went. Slave labor never seemed so good.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Yeah... Wal mart is expensive compared to Aldi.  Aldi is insane...this week you can get a 2.75lbs pork roast for $6.99

2lbs tilapia fillets are $4.99.

And their food isn't bad quality at all. 

[Cranberry]

No (not American)

I never got it why American supermarkets like Walmart, but apparently also Target (?), sell more than just grocery... Why would you want to buy, I don't know, clothes in the same shops that you buy grocery? It's just baffling to me, just seems so unconvenient. How do you even hold both the cart and the clothes or whatever while navigating through the store? And mustn't those other items reek terribly of food?

[Ban my account ffs!]

No (not American)

I never got it why American supermarkets like Walmart, but apparently also Target (?), sell more than just grocery... Why would you want to buy, I don't know, clothes in the same shops that you buy grocery? It's just baffling to me, just seems so unconvenient. How do you even hold both the cart and the clothes or whatever while navigating through the store? And mustn't those other items reek terribly of food?

It stems from the day of the department store.  Those stores sold everything from car tires to perfume to refrigerators to clothing.  And you could have lunch while you were there.

Wal-Mart, Target, and Kmart were all founded the same year I believe (1962) to be the same thing...but for suburban middle class folks.  Rather than being a special occasion like the department store was for most people, these stores could be a one-stop-shop for everything you need.

Keep in mind they generally did not sell groceries....only basic food items like bread and milk or eggs...

Edit: Target's more upscale reputation (called Tar-zhay boutique) stems from its parent company...Dayton's department store (MN Gov Mark Dayton is the heir to this fortune)...while both WalMart and Kmart came from the old fashion version of the modern "dollar store", then known as five and dimes. (Everything cost either five or ten cents...not to be confused with nickle and dimed...which is the practice of charging all kinds of arbitrary extra fees for normally included services).

So Target descended from above while the others rose up from below.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

No (not American)

I never got it why American supermarkets like Walmart, but apparently also Target (?), sell more than just grocery... Why would you want to buy, I don't know, clothes in the same shops that you buy grocery? It's just baffling to me, just seems so unconvenient. How do you even hold both the cart and the clothes or whatever while navigating through the store? And mustn't those other items reek terribly of food?

What Snowguy said, plus I would urge you not to think of it as a grocery store at all. The clothing comes first and foremost. At Target, the food came just a couple years ago even. There is little variation when it comes to food store quality. Wegmans and Whole Foods, sure, but the other 90% are virtually substitutes with local specialties.

[angus]

Why would you want to buy, I don't know, clothes in the same shops that you buy grocery?

get back to me when you have a job, a wife, and a child.  

I'm not saying that you should get your clothes there--I certainly don't--but the idea of having to visit a bank, a dairy, a baker, a butcher, a produce market, a stationer, and a blacksmith, all in one evening, after toiling away for Mister Scrooge for twelve hours, while paying a wet nurse and an au pair six shillings two pence per child per evening didn't appeal to most even in the good old days, and it doesn't appeal now.  The supermarket, however uncool or unhip it may seem, represents a great leap forward, if you'll pardon the expression.  While not exactly "Tea, Earl Grey, hot" whispered into a food replicator and received without any apparent barter mechanism, it is a step in the right direction.  At least in my humble opinion.  I very much like to be able to get a head of lettuce, a quart of motor oil, a 99-inch television, and a big wad of cash, all under one roof and all in one stop.  Moreover, in all the societies I've visited, the unlanded, nongentry populations likes it as well, so the supermarket is clearly not just an American phenomenon.  Although it may have been invented in Tennessee, it seems to hold some universal appeal, at least among those of us who haven't the means to pay people to shop for us.

[RR1997]

Yes, quite a few times, but I prefer Target.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

No (not American)

I never got it why American supermarkets like Walmart, but apparently also Target (?), sell more than just grocery... Why would you want to buy, I don't know, clothes in the same shops that you buy grocery? It's just baffling to me, just seems so unconvenient. How do you even hold both the cart and the clothes or whatever while navigating through the store? And mustn't those other items reek terribly of food?

We have these big carts with wheels at all the large stores.   As for the smell I'm guessing food in Austria is much more odorous than in the US?  Or maybe you have less packaging. Most food at these big stores come with lots of packaging.  And the produce, most people put in little plastic bags. If they didn't, it'd be gross, since the carts get dirty and gunky and most places don't seem to ever clean them. 

[angus]

We have the same sorts of carts every one else does.  At least all the carts I've seen in Mexico, China, Netherlands, Peru, etc., look like our carts.  (Except the wheels in China.  They have a little groove in it that I've not seen elsewhere, but the overall structure of the cart doesn't seem to vary by country.)

Also, the baby seat is the only really nasty part.  You should never put food there while you're shopping.  Repeated tests show a high concentration of fecal coliform bacteria in that area.  The rest of the cart just has the normal opportunistic organisms,, Escherichia coli and such in fairly low concentrations.  Nothing to become alarmed about.  I always leave the babyseat part closed and try to avoid touching it.