Goodbye Walmart

I've just made my last trip to Walmart, and good riddance. The LA Times has a story online right now about HP Touchpads selling for $100 at various retailers. I made the mistake of going to Walmart for mine.

Walmart Fuckup 1: Sold out online.

Walmart Fuckup 2: No answer at the nearest Walmart store (number obtained from store locator feature at Walmart.com). No answer, no voicemail system, no automated anything -- just ringing forever. I double checked the number, and tried it three times. It's a 24-hour store. A ringing phone is money for a retail store, no?

Walmart Fuckup 3: "Touch...?" asked the salesman in the electronics section. I had already checked the touchpad section and saw a pricetag and label for the HP Touchpad, but no items on the shelf.

Walmart Fuckup 4: Salesman led me to the section with the mouse pads. He understood "pad" and nothing else. "We don't have any," he said, after scanning the wrong section. I asked, "Do you want me to show you where the tablets are?" Sure.

Walmart Fuckup 5: Salesman looks at the touchpads behind the glass and shrugs. I showed him the empty spot on the shelf and pointed out the label and price for the HP Touchpad. He sees the emptiness and shrugs. "We're out."

Walmart Fuckup 6: Dude, I say, now out of patience. "You don't even know what a touchpad is. You don't know where they are. Are you sure you don't have any behind these boxes, or behind the counter, or maybe in the back in the warehouse area?" No, he says. He obviously knows nothing, but now -- suddenly -- he is certain they don't have any. I look him squarely in the eye and say, "That's not good enough."

He goes to the counter and retrieves a hand-held laser scanner and brings it to the HP Touchpad section. After scanning the barcode on the label, he shows me the screen, which says, "0".

Walmart Fuckup 7: "See," he says. "I stock these. If we had any I would have put them out here. We don't have any in the back."

I can't let that go. I haven't seen a performance like his in a long, long time. "Really? Really??? You stock these, but you don't know what they are, or where they are? Goodbye."

WHAT THE FUCKING HELL?

I don't need to patronize Walmart again. I don't need to save 45 cents on a bottle of tums bad enough to deal with mouthbreathers, and I certainly don't need to buy a $100 HP Touchpad at Walmart when the same item is being offered at the same price at five other retailers.