Wal-Mart: Yet another Reason to Drink Heavily
Gritting my teeth, I walked into Wal-Mart at noon.
I needed some supplements, and the street in front of the health food store was all
torn up, road graders everywhere, so I had no choice. Not that the health food store is
the apogee of customer service - most of the patrons (and all of the staff) are some brand
of strung out vegan liberal freaks, but the supplements are right up front, so I really
don't have to deal with them that much.
At Wal-mart, however, the supplements are way at the back, and only after you're kitted
out with an NBC suit and a stun gun dare you enter.
Maybe in the big city Wal-Mart attracts a more urbane sophisticate, but here, it's an
adventure into the world of the undead. Meth-addled women seemed to predominate in the
noon-time crowd, most of them razor thin, with dark circles under their eyes, blearily
loading their shopping carts with Sudafed and drain cleaner.
A few of the huskier unwed mothers occasioned through the aisles, too, most of them the
size of farm equipment with blowtorched makeup and squadrons of barely restrained children
arguing over the latest AK-47 playsets at the top of their lungs. Dope fiends stagger
through the auto parts section, seeking only God knows what.
In Aisle 22, mulleted, shifty-eyed, out-of-work mechanic types finger the shotgun
ammunition, keenly aware of the placement of each security camera and further on,
acne-ridden juvenile delinquents squander yet another hour of their precious time with the
video game demos.
After hacking my way through the jungle of zombies in under 45 minutes, I was feeling
rather pleased with myself as I approached the registers.
This of course, was my undoing. What would normally be a fairly mundane task of
scanning and paying cash is complicated at Wal-Mart thanks to the awe-inspiring stupidity
of the staff.
In the first place, it's difficult to pry them away from huffing the gold paint in
Aisle 13 just to come open the register, but even when their presence is compelled by a
line of fifteen customers, the really tricky part begins: They have to scan the product.
Although I'm mistrustful of computers, largely because I don't understand them, I am no
longer afraid that the technology will fail us and we'll have to resort to the barter
system to conduct ordinary commerce. I actually do have faith that the annoying system of
bar codes and scanners do the work they've been designed to do.
The only flaw in the system, of course, is what the software engineers would call
"the human interface."
In this case, the "human interface" was a frail, tubercular, mouth-breather
named Jessica. She was probably 19 (going on 42) with burgundy hair sporting streaks of
day old rat shit and lamentably cliché powder-blue eye shadow and the de rigueur labret,
none of which accentuated her appearance or her intelligence quotient.
She's a Blue Oyster Cult fan, in case you're curious - that fact proclaimed by her
faded t-shirt just visible beneath the Wal-Mart body armor. Despite her obvious fashion
sense and timely interest in a band that has been stylistically dead since 1981, the whole
bar code and scanner thing eluded her gargantuan intellect.
Because, of course, my item wouldn't scan. Invariably, I pick the ONE ITEM in the
entire store that will not scan.
Her response to this unpardonable lapse in the technology that allows her to be
employed as a scanning monkey is to…wait for it…scan it again. And again.
One more time.
"Fuck," she mouthed silently, as she picked up the bottle and peered at the
bar code numbers as you or I might examine Babylonic cuneiform. Painfully, slowly, she
typed the numbers into the register keyboard, occasionally pausing to wipe her nose with
the back of her hand.
Time stood still.
Finally, the keyboard clicking stopped, and her black-painted nail hovered over the
<b>ENTER</b> key. Almost in slow motion, the index finger moved through time
and space connecting with the key, which in turn sent an electrical impulse through the
entire Wal-Mart system, arching at the speed of light, and radar-like, returning to the
register terminal with the fateful information:
ITEM NOT KNOWN
Almost on cue, a collective groan went up from the queue of customers, and Jessica
muttered another vulgarity.
An interminable interval passed while she re-typed the item number, more slowly, if
such a thing is possible, than before.
ITEM NOT KNOWN
From the back of the line, a customer with even higher blood pressure than I have,
which is to say that his blood must have been vapor, barged out of the line and went to
the next register, loudly complaining about "can't find good help these days,"
and "goddamn computers."
Looking back to Jessica, I saw that she had changed her tactics. No longer did she
enter the number or re-scan the item. She was reading a magazine.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I can't make it work," she said sulkily, talking around a giant wad of gum.
"Does that mean it's free?" I asked.
At this point, the manager happened by. He was a thirty-something, balding
guy, with a name tag proclaiming "HI, I'm JACK - ASST MGR."
"It won't scan," Jessica huffed, "I typed it twice."
Unlike Jessica, JACK-ASST MGR is a problem-solver. Unceremoniously removing
Jessica from the register area, Jack began a series of programming instructions that would
have baffled NSA Crypto Technicians. With dizzying speed JACKASST-MGR's fingers blazed
away at the keyboard with one hand while turning over bar code sheets taped to the
register with the other.
I have no doubt that by the time he was done, he had changed the price structure of
every product in Wal-mart's distribution chain, redirected CIA satellites over Iran, and
forwarded email to the international space station.
"How much was that, sir?" he asked me.
"$5.99, I think," I said, honestly.
Another set of typed instructions slammed into the mainframe.
"That'll be $6.37," he said taking the saw buck I laid on the counter,
"and here's your change. Sorry about the wait."
"No problem," I said. "Where'd you learn to type like that?"
"M.I.T.," he said with a slight smile. I couldn't tell if he was serious.
As I was leaving, I heard him say, "Jess, go mop out the ladies restroom."
- www.KCDrinker.com - 2003 ©
