Welcome to Wal-Mart

I’ve always hated Wal-Mart. It’s no one thing, it’s all things making war on my senses at the same time: the lights, the noise of babies crying and registers blipping, the cavernous space, the long, glary aisles, the majority of the people who shop there.

If one were to write a nervous breakdown scene into a TV program or movie, it would have to be set in Wal-Mart. In that section where they have all the stuff to organize your closets, of course.

A woman once yelled at me there, called me the most horrible names, because all I did was try to protect her toddler son from a collision between two carts coming together at a perpendicular angle. Her husband later apologized, blamed her pregnancy hormones, but still.

Every time I go there it’s under duress.

And now I find out that I’m not alone.

A judge, according to the New York Post (and brought to my attention by fark.com), sentenced a woman who had shoplifted from Wal-Mart to stand outside the store (with her partner in crime) wearing this sign.

I don’t know what’s worse – having to wear the sign or being so desperate that you have to shoplift from Wal-Mart.

Well, at least she could have had a more severe punishment. She could have been made to wear a blue apron and be one of those people who greets shoppers.

Or she could be one of those people who are always been called upon to fix the self-checkouts.

Now THAT would suck.