See, K-Mart, this is why you suck.

Good afternoon!



K Mart Sucks...and now I know why.

I love the movie "Rain Man."  If you haven't seen it, you need to.  Go, right now.  Rent it, buy it, see if Netflix will let you stream it.  I'll wait. 

Okay, now that you've caught up, I was in college when Rain Man came out and I always thought they were a little harsh to that department store giant, K-Mart.  When I was a kid, we'd go to K-Mart when we were doing gift shopping or special shopping.  I loved the announcements for blue light specials.  I'd run around the store, at the risk of infuriating my mother, so that I could find the blue light and BE THERE when they said "Shoppers for the next ten minutes the blue light special will be No Nonsense pantyhose!"

I'll be honest, though, since I got older, and Walmart showed up in every town, and then Target started selling groceries, and Sam's Club sold me cheese pop corn by the drum, I haven't spent a lot of time at K-Mart.  I understand they've been going through a bit of a downturn lately, which is a shame.

At least I thought so, until I stopped at one this morning.

I needed a loaf of bread, some cat food, and a roll of birthday wrapping paper.  (Today Skippy turns 20.)  I didn't feel like making a trip out of may way for any of these things, and K-Mart just happened to be where I was.  So I stopped in for these three things.

And that's when I found out why K-Mart sucks.

In case the owners of K-Mart aren't aware, I will share my shopping experience with you all.

I stopped at the store at about 10 AM.  The store, according to the sign, opened at 8 AM.  Apparently, however, the automated doors didn't open until sometime AFTER 10 because as I was walking briskly into the store I aimed for the automatic doors.  I have issues with opening doors.  I also have issues paying attention to whether or not a door is open.  See, it's an automatic door which means when I'm near it it should OPEN automatically.

That didn't exactly happen.  At all.  I about smashed my face into the door.  And then I did that dance, that side to side dance to see if I could activate the door.  No dice.  So I pulled open the other door and went in.

The store was abandoned, which was fine by me since I have no patience for crowds.  I found the cat food and the wrapping paper right away.  All I needed was bread.  A loaf of bread. That's it.

Fifteen minutes of searching and I realized one thing: K-Mart had more shelf space devoted to Toffifay candy than they do to BREAD.  Don't remember what Toffifay candy is? Don't feel bad.  No one does! 

I eventually found bread...sort of.  There was a basket of reduced loaves of bread.  $2 for some no named loaf of paste white bread.  See, I was looking for something with maybe some fiber...or flavor.  I was NOT looking for an expired loaf of store brand glue.  And friends, that was literally the only bread, the only bread like anything in the store.  There were no bagels, no English muffins, no other breads of any kind in that building.  Two rows devoted to soda and chips...one shopping cart for expired bread. (Where's Michelle Obama...why isn't she picketing K-Mart?)

Well, armed with two of the three things I needed, I headed to the checkout.  This is a store that had, according to the signs, been open for more than two hours.  There was not ONE LANE OPEN.  Not one.  I

couldn't find anyone willing to admit they worked there.  In fact, after wandering around for five more minutes, I actually set my stuff down on an open shelf  (there were a ton of them) and I was about to leave when on single lane light popped on.

The woman scanned my items and asked me if I had a membership savings card.  I said, politely, "no."  What I wanted to say was, "Why would I want to admit I shop in a store where the employees are hiding from the customers who aren't here?"

I noted that this particular branch of K-Mart is hiring. I'm just putting that out there.