Prodigal Mart?

Many of you are already aware of my longstanding boycott of W*%m&!t, but for those of you who don't, let me make clear that this boycott is not one of principle. That they may have used child labor, demeaned women and minorities or killed all the younglings at the Jedi temple has nothing to do with my refusal to do business with The Store That Must Not Be Named. Rather, my boycott is a practical one.

Simply put: They NEVER have what I go in there to buy.

When I say never, I mean never in a string of around two dozen times did Voldemart have what I went in there for. Some examples of the more mundane items I would have purchased include a tape measure, a sweatshirt in my size, wrapping paper and a best-selling movie title. The event that instigated the boycott involved the search for a pencil.

That's right. A pencil. And not an automatic pencil or a 205-B high polymer drafting pencil. A regular, run-of-the-mill, any-student-in-any-school-should-have-it, yellow, wooden pencil. I went into Sprawlmart, a retail outlet the size of a city block, looking for an item so ubiquitous I could have found one on the sidewalk, but there was not to be found a single one in the store. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the blue vested people when I asked them where they might be hiding their pencils. You would have thought them some form of mindless undead for the blank stare they gave me.

That was about 18 years ago.

Being the forgiving sort of guy that I am, I've gone in every so often since that time in an effort to see if the label of shame might be lifted, but to no avail. I even manufactured a completely unnecessary shopping trip to the Evil Empire some years ago just to see if they would have a combination lock. No such luck. Wifeness called them to see about a car seat, which was rumored to be on sale there. A clerk on the phone said the item was in stock and even purported to set one aside for her. When she arrived, she was told there were none. I'd resigned myself to the fact that Darth Wal would forever remain untouchable.

I have had reason to revisit their censure.