Yes! I was hoping somebody in the comments could direct me to this one again. What a wild ride (something something Mr Bones).

Alright, so I quite literally haven’t stepped foot into Walmart since June of 2015. The only money I’ve given them since was for two grocery pick-ups during early COVID when it was in a 5% cashback category on my CC. I have no idea of what changes have been made in the physical stores since then, and this sounds … Horrifying. What happens if the price changes before you check out? I would feel duped. Are they going to make you “check in” when you enter so they can give you the price at time of entry? Or are you SOL if you don’t make it to the cash register in time? And wouldn’t that extra rush to get out make them lose money on stuff you pick up wandering around? Or maybe they want you in and out as fast as possible. What a clusterfuck.

I do love telling people about my Walmart-less living when it suits the conversation, and 90% of the time they are shocked, absolutely flabbergasted. “How can you do that?! Where do you get all of your stuff?!?” Well, like many middling American cities home to at least 20,000 people, there is a Target, Walgreens, a regional grocery store, Maurices, and for some reason like 12 auto parts stores right down the street. I can’t recall anything in Walmart, aside from exclusive clothing brands (if you can call them that), that I haven’t found elsewhere in at least some quantity-per-package. I get that people want a one-and-done shopping experience, but besides my routine Aldi stops, I don’t shop that much anymore, even online.

My reasons? I would like to say that I am boycotting them for paying shit wages, being viciously anti-union, and all the other ethical shortcomings that never seem to improve. And that definitely is a part of it. But the main reason, the one setting me on my path toward Walmart Recovery (I should start up a Wal-Anon) was from the experience I had the night I needed to buy a broom, my last night or day in that store.

It was somewhere between 11 and 1 am (definitely after 11) and I had just moved house into a… House. (I was in an apartment previously.) The place needed a serious cleaning, and I simply did not have the correct broom for the job. Picked out the broom and a few other cleaning things, all was well. But shortly before checking out, a group of rowdy youngsters in their late teens sidled by me, laughing about something while also eyeballing my cart with the broom and other boring household accoutrements. I was but 23. I guess I hadn’t shaken the adolescent anxiety of feeling judged about appearances and actions at that point, but the thought that these slightly younger peers were making fun of my broom shopping was too much to bear.

“Oh my gawd, who buys a broom on a Friday night?? Get a life, ya loser.”

“I did. I did get a life! I’m moving on up, bitches! I went from a 500 sqft apartment to an 800 sqft house with fuckin windows on all sides! I can put plants in every room, every nook and tiny-ass cranny! And I can bring my cat! And if that damn house of mine needs a broom at midnight, then my gods, I am going to go out and fucking GET ONE.”

Anyway, that’s my story about how I broke up with Walmart. DM me for requests to join Wal-Anon, we have plenty of seats for everybody! (The room will be free of any and all Mainstays furnishings and the coffee will be served sans Great Value cups, I assure you.)

Goodbye.

Just an FYI, although they aren’t physical products like this Roku, many apps and digital services have added the very same binding arbitration clauses recently.

The McDonald’s app for one. I ended up deleting the app after it tried to force me into binding arbitration and I didn’t want to go through to opt-out process for marginally cheaper, shitty food, so I just deleted the app altogether and haven’t eaten there since November.

Watch out for it if you drive for doordash or ubereats as well. I opted out of both, although they claimed you couldn’t opt out in an new contract when you didn’t before (a bunch of BS, if the current contract you are about to sign says it supercedes all others, you can’t make the lack of an opt-out on a previous contract hold up).

On-going services might make sense for these shitty enough clauses, but to be strong armed into it for physical product you bought free and clear … Disgusting.

It’s like all these companies are locking themselves down to minimize legal exposure because they know that their services and products are getting more awful or something.

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Pardon my language, but holy balls. I knew AI was powerful and self-driving cars and five-second essays and convincing deep fakes and yada yada, but this … This is shaking me to my core. The refinement in composition, the surrealist allure, the subtle variations of cockroach positioning …

Gotdarn it’s too good.

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I’ve been there! Shibuya Crossing. It was pretty cool to saunter across with hundreds of other people under the glow of the giant screens. We probably went back and forth three times, hehe. You can see the Hachikō (Akita famous for loyalty to his late owner) statue as well!

Unfortunately there are young fucks (relatively) who do the same damn thing. In re: Kristi Noem, SD gov (if anyone hasn’t heard of her, she’s a potential running mate for Trump, and hasn’t paid an ounce of attention to her state since she was sworn in, in 2019). She flipped out when SD passed their recreational measure in 2020 and had the state supreme court overrule it with an incredibly flimsy argument essentially saying the measure wasn’t valid in the ballot as written (the state’s fault really, or was that “oversight” some kind of conspiracy?). Went against the majority, in a state where 2/3 of voters are Republican, forfeited millions in easy tax revenue, all to reject the will of the people simply because she doesn’t like it.

Party of small government and freedom, eh? Her words are like her lips: bloated and fake, fully ingenuine.

Not too bad! All things considered anyway. I started coming down with what turned out to be COVID last Thursday (sigh), 4 days after returning from an insanely fun time at Chicago’s Riot Fest (yay!). Lucky for me, it’s been the equivalent of a moderate cold, with much less fatigue and lack of desire to do literally anything than when I had it the first time 14 months ago. Then again, I slept well into Friday afternoon and now I can’t sleep again and it’s 4am CDT, oops.

Back to Riot Fest though… Oh man, I wish I could go back! Seeing 17 full sets from various punk rock, emo, indie, avant-garde, metal, post-hardcore bands was the highlight of my year. Turnstile, Death Cab for Cutie, Queens of the Stone Age, Mr. Bungle, AFI, and The Dresden Dolls were probably my favorite. Hawthorne Heights and Silverstein were solid, Bowling for Soup was surprisingly fun, and Death Grips was just inteeense. I’m really sad I missed Corey Feldman though, huehue.

Anywho, this is my first post ever on Lemmy. I have no idea how this will even show up (username? at something?) so this is fun. Cheers!