Mighty Wal*Mart has everything............
First time for everything, so yesterday (Wednesday, March 14, 2007), was our first visit to the grand Canandaigua-Wal*Mart extravaganza.
For years, Wal*Mart had a tiny, depressing dungeon out beyond Weggers on Eastern Boulevard (5&20). It was not actually in Canandaigua. It was in Hopewell, one of the next towns east of Canandaigua.
The new Wal*Mart is even farther out, situated in one of the few pieces of vacant land left in the valley Canandaigua Lake is in; primarily because it was utter desolation before.
No doubt the original Wal*Mart, at about 20,000 square feet, was large at the time it was built.
But now that superstores (supperstores?) are big enough to hanger an entire fleet of giant B36 bombers, it was depressingly small.
The old store’s ceiling was only about 20 feet. The new store is 40 or 50 feet.
The new Wal*Mart is a bit strange because it doesn’t have direct access to Eastern Boulevard, the main highway.
In fact, you access its vast parking-lot from a competitor, mighty Lowes.
Wal*Mart is behind a row of fast-food joints and turgid franchise restaurants that line Eastern Boulevard.
So we treaded gingerly into the vast Wal*Mart parking-lot, big enough to land a 747, except for the shopping-cart corrals sprinkled here and there.
Those corrals are open, but have a large framed entrance with blue signs overhead advertising various Wal*Mart services: e.g. digital film-processing (huh????????).
We did not barge into the lot at 152 mph, but instead at about 5 mph, looking warily side-to-side for hard-charging Granny, or angry REPUBLICAN intimidators in gigantic Chevy pickups festooned with support-our-troops ribbons on the tailgate, and a gigantic translucent American-flag applique covering the entire rear-window.
We also had to dodge two riffraffers gathering carts with a motorized donkey.
We first saw these things in north Floridy at a Wal*Mart near Linda’s mother, except they were powered by gas. Perhaps a Briggs and Stratton or even a Harley. Sounded right: “puttato-puttato-puttato.”
The one in Canandaigua appeared to be electrically powered by a storage-battery — perhaps made by Toyota with the same motivator that was in their electric forklift.
Whatever; they all had the flashing yellow strobe-beacon to warn Granny and the Intimidators to stay away. Although in north Floridy the beacon was atop a tall wand — in Canandaigua it was atop the donkey-case.
The intent of our visit was to hopefully come away with a new bathroom-scale, and a canister vacuum-cleaner.
Our central-vac (the 454) is ailing, more-or-less. It’s 17 years old, and has gotten a lot of use.
A few weeks ago it screeched and made strange sounds.
It still sucks fairly well, but smells up the basement — as if the giant motor may be burning out.
A technician will come tomorrow (Friday, March 16, 2007) to look at it, but if it’s still sucking fairly well, it ain’t clogged.
Meanwhile, our house fills up with dog-hair; plus the central-vac is rather inconvenient cleaning out cars.
I can imagine the Bluster-King noisily asking why the central-vac doesn’t have an outlet in the garage.
Sorry, bluster-boy; but it does. It’s just that it’s rather inconvenient using it. It ain’t as easy as using a canister would be.
“So get a shop-vac,” the bluster-boy foams. Sorry Bubba; we already have one — and it’s a disaster. Makes a huge racket, and blows smoky dust all over.
“Dealing with it” means getting a portable canister.
And so we patronize mighty Wal*Mart, since it was in the vicinity of the Canandaigua YMCA and mighty Weggers.
Into the huge front-entryway we walked, to be immediately accosted by a little-old-man with dollar-bills stapled to his pork-pie hat, cascading to the floor. He was soliciting donations to some hospital-charity.
“No thank you,” we said. Them kids can rot in their rooms!
A lady greeter was laid out in a chair at a small desk on the side of the entrance. She never got up, and appeared to be in her middle-50s. —So in other words, we got in without being bussed by some foul-smelling geezer.
Once inside the vast store, we set out in search of the vacuums, but thankfully big direction-signs were hung from the ceiling, so we didn’t have to be snapped at by a smiling illegal-alien store-associate on a donut-break.
We found the vacuums, but they were all uprights, looking like rejects from the Star-Wars canteena set. Turn them all on, and I can imagine them serenading Han Solo and Princess Lea and Chewbacca and Luke glomming large spindly crustaceans deep-fried in transfat.
There must have been 36 different uprights, and only one tiny canister on display.
Actually two were marketed, but the GE was out-of-stock, and not even on display.
The one there was a yellow Eureka with a smallish bag that might fill in an hour.
“What is it with all these uprights?” Linda asked. “How ya supposed to get it under a chair?” (We’re going to have to purchase a canister online, or heaven-forbid: from SEARS.)
Next move was a new bathroom-scale.
We stumbled upon the bathroom-scale aisle, eying a display of various gizmos.
“I just don’t want anything that talks to me,” I said.
About six or seven scales were on display; both analog and digital. A baby-blue one was endorsed by Weight-Watchers; two others, an analog and a digital, were Taylor.
I guess this is the infamous Taylor-Instruments of yore, once one of the mighty industrial icons of Rochester.
But the digital-scale we purchased was made in China (by Chinese child prison-labor, no doubt); at least that’s what it says on the box. One wonders if Taylor-Instruments is still in business.......
As we began leaving, my wife said: “while we’re in here, we should also look for kitchen-towels.”
We stumbled upon an array of kitchen-linens overlooked by a huge yellow smile-face; audibly blubbering something about “Always.........”
The dish-towels looked like knitted socks.
Feeling around, my wife found a single choice of pot-holders — two pot-holders.
“I thought Wal*Mart had everything, Jack. Is this all they got? There must be something else somewhere.”
Sure enough, as we walked out we passed another selection of plastic-like kitchen-linens at the end of an aisle with signature Dale Earnhardt beachballs.
“How ya supposed to find anything when it’s hanging all over?” Linda asked.
We slowly passed a large box with glowering green Ninga-geckos on it; apparently from a Saturday-morning cartoon. Step back; lest you get bit. The box had angry plastical Ninga-geckos in it — ready to save the world. (The Universe is Bruce Willis.)
After checking out, we walked past the little-old-man with the cascading dollar-bills stapled to his hat.
At least my electronical signature seemed fairly accurate. Unlike mighty Lowes, it wasn’t conjuring up lines when ya approached with the writing-instrument.
“Thank ya for shopping Wal*Mart,” the greeter barked from her semi-supine position.
 |
| The Keed. |
| Photoshop is such fun. |
The new Wal*Mart is even farther out, situated in one of the few pieces of vacant land left in the valley Canandaigua Lake is in; primarily because it was utter desolation before.
No doubt the original Wal*Mart, at about 20,000 square feet, was large at the time it was built.
But now that superstores (supperstores?) are big enough to hanger an entire fleet of giant B36 bombers, it was depressingly small.
The old store’s ceiling was only about 20 feet. The new store is 40 or 50 feet.
The new Wal*Mart is a bit strange because it doesn’t have direct access to Eastern Boulevard, the main highway.
In fact, you access its vast parking-lot from a competitor, mighty Lowes.
Wal*Mart is behind a row of fast-food joints and turgid franchise restaurants that line Eastern Boulevard.
So we treaded gingerly into the vast Wal*Mart parking-lot, big enough to land a 747, except for the shopping-cart corrals sprinkled here and there.
Those corrals are open, but have a large framed entrance with blue signs overhead advertising various Wal*Mart services: e.g. digital film-processing (huh????????).
We did not barge into the lot at 152 mph, but instead at about 5 mph, looking warily side-to-side for hard-charging Granny, or angry REPUBLICAN intimidators in gigantic Chevy pickups festooned with support-our-troops ribbons on the tailgate, and a gigantic translucent American-flag applique covering the entire rear-window.
We also had to dodge two riffraffers gathering carts with a motorized donkey.
We first saw these things in north Floridy at a Wal*Mart near Linda’s mother, except they were powered by gas. Perhaps a Briggs and Stratton or even a Harley. Sounded right: “puttato-puttato-puttato.”
The one in Canandaigua appeared to be electrically powered by a storage-battery — perhaps made by Toyota with the same motivator that was in their electric forklift.
Whatever; they all had the flashing yellow strobe-beacon to warn Granny and the Intimidators to stay away. Although in north Floridy the beacon was atop a tall wand — in Canandaigua it was atop the donkey-case.
The intent of our visit was to hopefully come away with a new bathroom-scale, and a canister vacuum-cleaner.
Our central-vac (the 454) is ailing, more-or-less. It’s 17 years old, and has gotten a lot of use.
A few weeks ago it screeched and made strange sounds.
It still sucks fairly well, but smells up the basement — as if the giant motor may be burning out.
A technician will come tomorrow (Friday, March 16, 2007) to look at it, but if it’s still sucking fairly well, it ain’t clogged.
Meanwhile, our house fills up with dog-hair; plus the central-vac is rather inconvenient cleaning out cars.
I can imagine the Bluster-King noisily asking why the central-vac doesn’t have an outlet in the garage.
Sorry, bluster-boy; but it does. It’s just that it’s rather inconvenient using it. It ain’t as easy as using a canister would be.
“So get a shop-vac,” the bluster-boy foams. Sorry Bubba; we already have one — and it’s a disaster. Makes a huge racket, and blows smoky dust all over.
“Dealing with it” means getting a portable canister.
And so we patronize mighty Wal*Mart, since it was in the vicinity of the Canandaigua YMCA and mighty Weggers.
Into the huge front-entryway we walked, to be immediately accosted by a little-old-man with dollar-bills stapled to his pork-pie hat, cascading to the floor. He was soliciting donations to some hospital-charity.
“No thank you,” we said. Them kids can rot in their rooms!
A lady greeter was laid out in a chair at a small desk on the side of the entrance. She never got up, and appeared to be in her middle-50s. —So in other words, we got in without being bussed by some foul-smelling geezer.
Once inside the vast store, we set out in search of the vacuums, but thankfully big direction-signs were hung from the ceiling, so we didn’t have to be snapped at by a smiling illegal-alien store-associate on a donut-break.
We found the vacuums, but they were all uprights, looking like rejects from the Star-Wars canteena set. Turn them all on, and I can imagine them serenading Han Solo and Princess Lea and Chewbacca and Luke glomming large spindly crustaceans deep-fried in transfat.
There must have been 36 different uprights, and only one tiny canister on display.
Actually two were marketed, but the GE was out-of-stock, and not even on display.
The one there was a yellow Eureka with a smallish bag that might fill in an hour.
“What is it with all these uprights?” Linda asked. “How ya supposed to get it under a chair?” (We’re going to have to purchase a canister online, or heaven-forbid: from SEARS.)
Next move was a new bathroom-scale.
We stumbled upon the bathroom-scale aisle, eying a display of various gizmos.
“I just don’t want anything that talks to me,” I said.
About six or seven scales were on display; both analog and digital. A baby-blue one was endorsed by Weight-Watchers; two others, an analog and a digital, were Taylor.
I guess this is the infamous Taylor-Instruments of yore, once one of the mighty industrial icons of Rochester.
But the digital-scale we purchased was made in China (by Chinese child prison-labor, no doubt); at least that’s what it says on the box. One wonders if Taylor-Instruments is still in business.......
As we began leaving, my wife said: “while we’re in here, we should also look for kitchen-towels.”
We stumbled upon an array of kitchen-linens overlooked by a huge yellow smile-face; audibly blubbering something about “Always.........”
The dish-towels looked like knitted socks.
Feeling around, my wife found a single choice of pot-holders — two pot-holders.
“I thought Wal*Mart had everything, Jack. Is this all they got? There must be something else somewhere.”
Sure enough, as we walked out we passed another selection of plastic-like kitchen-linens at the end of an aisle with signature Dale Earnhardt beachballs.
“How ya supposed to find anything when it’s hanging all over?” Linda asked.
We slowly passed a large box with glowering green Ninga-geckos on it; apparently from a Saturday-morning cartoon. Step back; lest you get bit. The box had angry plastical Ninga-geckos in it — ready to save the world. (The Universe is Bruce Willis.)
After checking out, we walked past the little-old-man with the cascading dollar-bills stapled to his hat.
At least my electronical signature seemed fairly accurate. Unlike mighty Lowes, it wasn’t conjuring up lines when ya approached with the writing-instrument.
“Thank ya for shopping Wal*Mart,” the greeter barked from her semi-supine position.
Now; regarding our fabulous bathroom-scale from mighty Wal*Mart, and the accuracy thereof.
Linda tried it this morning and it said 124 pounds.
She shifted forward and it read 115.
Back and it read 125.
Slightly forward and it read 118.
We bought that scale because our hand-me-down (from Linda’s deceased Aunt Ethelyn) appeared to consistently be reading seven pounds less than the one at the PT-gym.
Plus the Y didn’t appear to have a scale.
Although I see one in the men’s locker-room, but I haven’t used it yet, because it’s buried where ya don’t notice it.
It’s one of them medical scales with all the levers and weight-bars.
I tried the new scale, and it read 199; the weight I crank into the treadmill and elliptical.
But the scale is from Wal*Mart, the most fabulous store in the entire universe; so “deal with it!”
posted by BobbaLew at 3:25 PM
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