Grrrrrr.....

I really should have known better.

You see, I needed a new vacuum cleaner, mine is losing it's 'oomph'. The search began at Sam's Club...they're offering a Hoover model that claims "Outcleans Dyson by 13%". Well, since I'm not plunking down $500 for a vacuum, we thought we'd pick that one up in a few days. Well, lo and behold, they were all gone when we returned, so now the hunt is on to find this vacuum somewhere else.

We went to every store in town (that we could think of) to find this Hoover, and came up empty everywhere. Next, we decided to search it on the internet (logical, no?). Well, we found it...the fucker is a Wal-Mart exclusive. Fuck.

My hatrid for Wal-Mart is deep and pure. I'm not sure what Wal-Mart looks like in your town, but here it's the fucking redneck jamboree. Until Saturday, I hadn't stepped foot in our local Wal-Mart in about 3 years.

OK, so we braved the parking lot and headed inside to find my vacuum. It was going pretty well, we found the new vacuum quickly and headed for the checkout. As we stepped into the checkout lane, we noticed that it was a "10 items or less" lane, however, the chick in front of us had a cart full of Easter candy that she was loading onto the belt. There had to be 25 or 30 bags of candy there. If that weren't bad enough, she proceeded to pay for her goodies with food stamps. Now, c'mon, food stamps should buy things like bread, milk, cereal and the like. Not 84 metric tons of easter candy. I probably would have been less angry if she'd paid with a check.

Now, we checkout, and head to dinner, having been released from the grody grips of Wally World. After a lovely dinner, we make our way home to assemble and try out our new dirt sucker, which, I must say, really picked up some shit out of my carpet. As I was marvelling at the amount of dog hair this thing ate, I take out the dust bin to empty it, head to the trash can, and notice a large pile of dirt on the floor by my feet. Fuck, the latch that is supposed to hold the dust bin closed is broken. NOW I HAVE TO GO BACK TO WAL-MART AND EXCHANGE THIS THING! It's almost a fate worse than death.

That was Saturday. Today, it got worse...

Today, I repack the broken vacuum and load it into my truck to return it to the hell from which it was spawned. As I'm preparing to turn up an aisle to park, I see a Buick LeSabre's reverse lights come on, so I stopped to let the guy get out of his space. The guy proceeds to try to turn this thing 180 degrees to drive the wrong way out of the aisle. He missed my front fender by about 6 inches. I'm not pleased. Once he's out of the way, I start to head into his empty space. Next thing I know, the lady that was parked in the space next to him, backs out, pulls a complete U-turn and drives the wrong way out of the aisle as well. And, OK, I lost my tiny little mind, yelling and cussing (me, cuss?), and she just sweetly waves and says 'thank you' because she thinks that I let her out.

Now, once I finally got inside, the exchange went pretty smoothly. I got the new one home (again), put it together, plugged it in, and the fucker didn't work. Wouldn't even turn on. I've had it. Now, I have to go back to Wal-Mart AGAIN, and return this thing. I could just die.

This time, I'm getting my money back and going somewhere else, while I figure out how to scrub Wal-Mart gunk off of my soul.

UPDATE (4/11/06): Well, after calming down, when I got home today, I called Hoover to see if it's possible to take the handle back out to check the power cord connection. Sadly, it isn't. So, I calmly took a look at the back of the machine, realized that the screws were regular phillips-head screws, took a panel off and fixed the machine myself. Problem solved...

I still have to get that Wal-Mart gunk off of my soul, though...I think a few beers should at least be a start...