Walmart is teh Awesome.

Grandma is 87, rich, loves to buy stuff for her yard, and drives a Camaro SS (no kidding). Nothing large fits in her car. She talks the salespeople into holding the stuff until I can pick it up and drive it over. I live about 45 minutes away from her, so no big deal, but sometimes I can't do it for a few days.



Two weeks ago she bought what she told me was "potting soil" from Home Depot. They were total pricks when I got there the next day. They made the entire deal as painful as possible, DESPITE the fact that they have a protocol for purchases that will be picked up at a later time, which Grandma followed. (PLUS I got to smell chicken fertiziler for 45 minutes. Grandma has a healthy sense of humor.)

She bought a patio set over the weekend at Walmart. She was supposed to give me the receipt, but couldn't. I was supposed to pick the set up over the weekend but didn't. This morning I went there before work and asked the first teller I saw if she could help. The teller's speech is italicized:

"Do you have the receipt?"
"She didn't give me one."
"Um... is it on lay a way?"
"No. She already paid for it. She said they put it in the back."
"What was it?"
"A patio set."
"Do you know which one?"
"No."
"When did she buy it?"
"I'm not sure. She told me about it on Saturday. Sometime before then."

Just to be clear here- YES, I'm playing a douchebag. I know NOTHING except Grandma bought a patio set for me to pick up.

"Can you call her and find out?"
"Yeah, but I don't have a cell phone."
"You can use our phone."

So she calls Grandma, (to do this she has to call the office, which then calls Grandma, and then transfers the call back to the garden department) and PATIENTLY explains that she needs Grandma to find the receipt, give her the transaction number and other info, and waits until Grandma gives her all the information. Grandma does so.

"Okay, we just need to find it."

So she and I and another lady go looking for it. After about ten minutes we find it. It is WAY too big for my car... Oh crap.

"Oh man, that box will never fit in my car."

The other lady chimes in:

"Maybe if we unbox it it will fit?"
"I don't know."

(Yeah, I'm still being a douche. I don't think I AM a douche, generally. I hadn't had my coffee... I, um, I don't know, maybe I was already writing this blog entry in my head and my brain couldn't do that and be non-douche-ish at the same time...)

"The set is over here, the display model- let me show you. If we can put the chairs in the table comes unassembled, so if the chairs can fit it will fit."
"Oh yeah, that will fit."

So she walks the box out to my car on one of those big flat roller doohickies. It is raining and cold. She breaks out the boxcutters to open one side while I open the other and helps me load my car. Then she takes the box to throw it away for me!

Ten or fifteen different times the people at Walmart could have opted to not help at all, or to be less helpful. Instead, they went well out of their way to be as helpful as possible at every junction. Walmart is teh Awesome.