We'll see if this goes anywhere, but a week or so ago, while comparison-shopping online, I found that Wal-Mart had the cheapest price on an item I needed several of, so the price difference added up.

I used their "Site to Store" option, so I'd save the shipping fee. I paid for the product online, and was told I'd be notified within a couple of weeks, when the item arrived in a nearby store.

It arrived sooner than expected, and I went the the store to pick it up.

Here's what I wrote to them in my complaint:

I went to pick up my purchase at your store in xyz, MA, order # zyx, at around 8:45PM last night.

Despite asking countless store clerks, getting them to page for help (they did call – I heard the announcements), repeatedly pressing the call-service button at the Site to Store desk, and even picking up the store phone myself, it was not until 45 minutes later that someone arrived to check out my order... an order which I had already paid for online!

I kept wondering if I started putting merchandise in my pocket or smashing it against the wall, if anyone would arrive.

I waved at the security cameras in the manner of a stranded person on a desert island hoping an airplane pilot would see me.

I tried leaving the Site to Store room and shouting "Hellooo, does anyone work here?" and nothing.

In the end, a nice stockboy got my items out of the back room, but he wasn't authorized to sign out my order until a manager (I think he was a manager) arrived, a full three-quarters of an hour after I entered the store, which BTW was not at all busy at that late hour.

In case things weren't already surreal (I felt like I was stuck in the movie Career Opportunities, except it wasn't at Target. And there was no Jennifer Connelly.), then came the response at 1:27AM (outsource much?).

Though the reply had my original subject line, and of course my e-mail address, its entire contents consisted of a thread where four different Wal-Mart "service" people fail to solve the problem of a woman they repeatedly call "Joanne" (Her name is actually "Josephine," though perhaps everyone knew her as "Nancy." To be fair, "Joanne" appears in her e-mail address. But, still, getting her name wrong at every turn is a nice touch.).

As I've said before, one doesn't have to hate on Wal-Mart for its exploitative practices -- that's a personal and political decision. You can hate it just for being one of the shittiest large businesses in the world. It is the MySpace of retail stores, a place that sucks out loud but still keeps more than afloat. They're working hard to get me to reduce my visits from about two times a year to zero. Well done, corporate America, well done!