Key

Okay, Wal-Mart tried to kill me this week.

I can't say as I blame them, all the negative shit I've said about them. Like that they may save people $2,000 a year but that it's a false economy if a person lost $42,000 in annual income to some cutthroat Chinese company bent on bringing lead paint back to Fisher Price.

Of course, I didn't do anything compared to T-Shirt Hell. Though I think they about got it right, even if they don't know it. The Twenty First Century analog to waiting ten hours in line for shoes that don't fit in the Worker's Paradise is an America where all restaurants from snooty bistros to fast food outlets are owned by one big conglomerate owned, at the top, by Wal-Mart. I feel like I do business with Wal-Mart because I have no choice, but there are actually other places I can go for things yet. Not sure how long that will be true, though.

I still have faith in market forces, but a little stupid goes a long ways. Thinking locally owned stores owned and run by people who have a relationship with their customers will come back might be about like thinking there's now way we could kill all the buffalo. See also whooping cranes, see also Giant Condors, see also...



So when I needed tires, I went to Wal-Mart because they're freaking cheap. And on my way to get the girls Wednesday, I thought I'd hit a rough spot of highway. Except it stuck with me. I pulled over and looked at my right front tire, but it appeared to still be a tire.

I figured, tires are five months old and the tread is separating (one theory suggested to me by my ex's husband), or a knot in the wall of the tire (my Dad's offering), something with the damned tire. I've had control arms break and whatnot, so I thought it was unlikely that it was a mechanical problem based on my substantial databank of experience as someone who has owned a long succession of jalopies and heaps.

And the Wal-Mart chick in charge of disappointing customers that night told me it would be three or four hours before a lunkhead could look at my car. I axed her, Can I go back and use the tools? If I go back and do the oil changes, will someone who knows how to fix tires be freed up?

The ex picked me up and delivered me and the honyocks to my house and to school the next day. She dropped me at Wal-Mart and they told me my car was done. Sort of. The first counter girl I got couldn't tell if it was done or not, but a coworker showed her that if she understood the English language and opened her eyes, my car was done at 7:45 the night before. These were much dimmer bulbs than the chick who disappointed me the night before by explaining that even she wasn't allowed to help with the oil changes.



So I leave for work but the sound is still there. I look at the paper work and it's worded something like 'Checked all tires.' Nothing about replacing the faulty tire, just, 'Yep, Zeke. That there is a tire.  Air in it, too.'

I was fairly livid when I got back to the counter, enough so that the peon I was yelling at summoned the überpeon, who started trying to get shit done.

Turns out, the problem wasn't the tire. I was missing a lug nut and another was as vaguely there as the typical Wal-Mart cashier faced with an irate customer. Meaning, when they installed the tires, they didn't torque things down right.

This time when they fixed it I could drive without spotting a problem. Good thing, eh?

But I went back this weekend for an oil change and get the balance/rotation thing done. Em asked the perfect question: Aren't the tires rotating all the time? A better question might be, Dad, haven't you learned about letting Wal-Mart work on your car?

But I bought lifetime balance/rotation on my tires when I got them, and besides that, it's Sunday and I've got my kids in tow.  I figured if I pressed the point that they'd nearly killed me, maybe they'd snap their panties out of their asses and pay attention when they torqued down the lugs.  Of course, if I was stuck at Wal-Mart working for less than a living wage to deal with some asshole who expects his tires to stay on the car, maybe I would only be sorry I'd failed to get him in a deadly car accident.

Besides, while it would be nice if I had the leisure to pursue automotive maintenance during banker's hours, but that ain't my life these days.

Anyways, I think having them rotate the tires was a good idea, because an explanation I got for it taking forever was that they'd stripped a lug bolt and had to replace it. Left unsaid was, ''stripped it with stupidity a few months ago...'

So while we're waiting, having bought all the grocery type things we could ever want, I spot the key copy kiosk. Part of the automotive thing, I inquire about whether anyone can cut a key for me. I have some keys that are hard to tell part visually, so having one be tye-died or Patriotic would really help.



I was thinking in strictly Old School terms: last time I remember getting a key copied, it was something done by a skilled technician who used my key as a guide to lathe the new key.

Now it's computerized. To make it impossible for the Wal-Mart employee to cut the key wrong. Or not quite: the relatively sharp pencil—the disappointment artist from the other evening—did the cutting and two of the three copies I had made didn't work once I got home...