People from Wal-Mart have no sense of humor

On my way back up to Denver Monday night, I stopped at the Wal-Mart on North Academy to see if I might be able to get the new Foo Fighters' CD that (technically) comes out Tuesday.



I show up in the entertainment area of Ball-Cart at 10:30 p.m., and two employees are sitting around one checkout station—which, first of off, it's 10:30 at night on a Monday. How many people do you need to swipe a CD?—doing absolutely nothing.

I’m the only person for about 100 yards in every direction. As I slowly approach the two, foolishly wait for a moment to see if they’d acknowledge my existence, and finally crack and ask for their help, I ask if they have a box of the new Foo Fighters' CD. I mention that the CD comes out on "Tuesday" with a sarcastic smile and look at my ticking watch: 10:45 p.m. The 36-I-wish-I-were-still-26-year-old looks at me quizzically and says, "No, I haven’t seen any boxes around. And even if we did, we couldn’t sell it to you yet, there’d be a $10,000 fine for selling it early.”

I’m a bit taken aback. All I want is the CD. I’m not looking to rat out two graveyard shift-taking Wal-Mart employees to the FCC. I give a chuckle. I have no doubts he’s not “allowed” to sell me the CD yet, but he’s joking about being fined… right? His face goes back to being the stone-wall it was before he recognized I was even in the store.

“It’s not like I’m planning on telling anyone. I was just hoping if you guys have some CD’s ready to be put on the shelf, I might have one a few minutes early.”

All of a sudden, the girl who’s been sitting with her back to me this whole time turns around in a rather rude way and blurts,

“The computer would know. We’d scan it, it’d go through the system, it’d recognize when we made the sale, and then they’d fine the store $10,000 and they’d terminate us.”

“Jesus,” I said retorting quickly, “they’d kill you?”

At this point, I accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to get a CD, but I figure I could at least lighten up the mood in the “entertainment” section of Mall-Wart. My response was not only non-existent, they actually looked like they wanted to beat me up. After standing still for another awkward few seconds, I slowly shuffle off more pissed off at Will-Fart than ever before.

I swear… people who work at that shitty store have no sense of humor.