WHY I SHOP AT WAL-MART: I have the most unusual shopping hours - like 2am. It seems that when I finally have a moment to stock up on supplies Wal-mart is the only option because the three in my area are open 24 hours. I can usually find most everything I need in this one store, too, which does save me time.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT WAL-MART: As I said, they do have alot of products at their stores. It makes shopping there an easy decision. The prices are very reasonable..... often times I will browse through sale ads for other stores and still find it cheaper at Wal-mart. The store is well lit and always clean. I do manage to find something that I needed but left off my list when browsing the aisles.

WHY IT'S NICKNAME IS HELLMART: I can not count how many times I have finally finished my shopping and made my way up front to find myself standing at the end of a twenty person line. Nothing ticks me off more than seeing those 24 cash registers in a row and only two are being put to use. This has happened regardless of the time of day - even at 5:30 pm, when they should be expecting a gazillion people to get off work and come shopping. Over and over again I have heard people complaining about this yet it never seems to change - even during very busy seasons such as Christmas!

ONE MORE THING: Although Wal-mart does carry what seems like an endless list of products, for some reason they are always out of stock of the one thing I need most. For example I usually buy fish filters at Wal-mart, they have the best price. However, when I decide to make a quick trek to Wal-mart for this item they have 30 boxes of every brand and size of filter possible except for the ones I need. The neat little empty space where it should be just seems to taunt me. Maybe this is how I end up spending so long in Wal-mart - they are systematically out of the one thing that got me to the store in the first place, so in order to make the trip productive I feel that I have to find something else to buy.

WAIT, I'M NOT DONE YET: Two more of my pet peeves are: the bathrooms and the staff. The bathrooms you say? Well, for being a 'family oriented facility' they sure do find plenty of ways to trip me up, including roping off the only bathroom containing a changing station and managing to take several hours to clean it. The other thing is the staff - most of the time you will be wasting your breath to ask for help. If you've shopped at Wal-mart more than twice you know as much as they do. Every once in a while you'll bump into a very happy, cheery Wal-mart employee who is only more than happy to personally walk you straight to the item you have been searching for. These rare souls are the ones picked for those cute commercials that Wal-mart produces. Most of the employees want to just shrug their shoulders and make a guess at where it could be located, if they carry it at all, because they aren't sure. So that leaves you walking about half a mile around the store to locate it yourself. And don't think about trying to call and ask if they carry a product or if it's in stock before you decide to pack up and go yourself - you'll be put on hold forever and the operator seems to never be able to locate the department clerks who are apparently always on break.

IS SOMETHING STRANGE GOING ON HERE? Let me ask you how many times you have run into Wal-mart to buy one thing and you end up in the store for two hours? I swear sometimes it's like a wormhole - it sucks you in. I have had very odd experiences like leaving my car at midnight and returning what feels like thirty minutes later to find that several hours have passed and yet the same song is still playing on the radio? Maybe it's just me? I've tried really hard lately to narrow down the time I spend in this store because it is designed very well to get you to spend as much money as humanly possible. This is why they are popping up everywhere even though their customer service is declining rapidly with each new store.

BUT ENOUGH OF THAT: If I do complain about Wal-mart, it's, well, because it's not my ideal shopping experience. I wish I didn't have to spend twenty minutes in the check-out lane or fight insane aisle traffic to get to the laundry supplies. But after it is all said and done I know that I will be returning to Wal-mart again, probably sooner that I want. With convenient hours and inexpensive prices you can't go wrong with Wal-mart for a last minute must-have or the weekly household shopping trip.

BONUS: If you are a serious Wal-mart shopper you may have noticed that most Wal-mart stores contain at least a few of the following: hair/nail salon, tire & battery center, garden/greenhouse center, McDonald's or other fast food court, furniture store, eye care office, fabric & crafts, layaway department, pharmacy, photo development, banking, portrait center, etc. You really could get alot of things covered with one trip to Wal-mart.

Recommended: Yes