I Just Complimented Walmart, You Read Right!

For any of you that have been reading my posts, occasionally I’ll post about my hatred of Walmart and various experiences there. I’ve added pictures such as this; the Walmart clientele:

 So dear reader, why did I go to Walmart? My air conditioning has been going on and off for the past week. 10 minutes into my drive home this evening, I noticed the heat gauge thingy, or whatever you call it was on red. Now I’m not a car person (I know that was hard to figure out) but there is a universal truth that if any gauge is in red, you are screwed.

Despite the outside temperature clocking in at 96, I rolled my eyes and window (yes, my car is so old I must roll the windows down; but it’s paid and I’m going to run it till it dies) down. I prayed to the baby Jesus as well as the teenage Jesus that they just needed to get me to a car place where I could flirt my way into having the car fixed. Because it wasn’t bad enough that my car was a miniature sauna, I was now faced with the reality that the closest car shop was Walmart. WHY????? (when I cry/scream that, I am falling on the ground in an adult temper tantrum in my head).

I park in the car area, walk my ass over to the customer service entrance and up to the front desk.

“Allo, what can I do for you?”

I gave him my well thought out diagnosis of my car.

“Hi, my car is really hot, the temperature gauge thingy is almost on red and my ac doesn’t work. My car feels like a thousand degrees. I probably need oil because it leaks it and maybe whatever you can recommend to get the ac going again. I have $20 bucks to spend and that’s it. What do ya’ think?”

He thought for a second. “What kind oil do you need?”

“I don’t know. Just oil-oil,” I said mildly irritated. My phone was now sweaty in my back pocket and I had made the stellar move of wearing skinny jeans….like camel toe skinny jeans. This question obviously confused me as I did not know there was more than 1 type of oil that would be associated with hotter than hell-like atmosphere inside my cabin. I decided to simplify my request.

“I need the type of oil that you get during an oil change, but dirt cheap oil. But not oil that is going to ruin my car.”  I think that cleared it up.

I think that once he realized he was dealing with someone that had about as much experience with cars as buying hot wheels in the toy department, he took mercy on me and went to work. But it gets better. Not only did he pick out all the stuff I needed, I came in under $14 AND he went out and filled the oil and the coolant.

Long story short, what I like to call the Miracle on Walmart Street happened. 10 minutes later, I was dialing up the store manager’s number to compliment this fellow that didn’t have to help me but did. I am starting to understand the whole pay it forward thing. I am trying VERY hard to do something nice when something nice happens to me.

I get a job….I try to help others find a new job.

Great customer service….tell their boss.

Relative takes the time to contact you? Respond back.

I’m not perfect, but I’m trying to do better. So, I leave you with the beginning of my voicemail to the store manager who had already left for the day:

“Hi, my name is Hot Mess and I was just at your Walmart. Normally your store drives me absolutely batty but today was different. I wanted to tell you about one of your employees that went above and beyond for me and didn’t have to…….”