Speaking of e-mail, I did e-mail Home Depot about their self checkout and
complained.  They don't have a real person to monitor their e-mail, they
have a computer with "artificial intelligence".  It's VERY artificial; it
couldn't categorize my complaint to formulate a proper response.  I gave up,
haven't been back since.

I was blown away by these mind-boggling statistics on Wal-Mart!

1. At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day.

2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th)
than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco +
K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in
mind they did this in only 15 years.

8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy
(including Winn-Dixie).

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are
SuperCenters; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.

11. This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a
Wal-Mart store.
(Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion).

12. 90% of Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart.

Walmart, although a great success story of business that has brought cheaper
goods to our homes, is also a symbol of America's decline.

Walmart does not make anything. It only sells items that are made in China.
Walmart is our number one employer, when at one time companies like General
Motors, Bethlehem Steel and Westinghouse were our major employers. This
shift shows that jobs have left our country for China. Look what is
happening to General Motors and Ford. Americans now work for low paying
Walmart jobs when their parents worked for high paying union jobs at
industrial manufacturing companies that are now in China.

restocking fees are bullshit anyways. they are still going to sell the
product at full price. and in your case that's even bigger BS! i havent
been to a Circuit city store in years and wont be going back....Best buy
is another one that will never see my shadow darken its doors.

Thanks for the head up.

I've heard horror stories about Home Depot, also. Unfortunately
for me, HD is the nearest big box hardware store. I have a small
town hardware a bit closer, I should shop at the local store
first,

I worked for Sears in 1996, and saw enough not to want to come
back.

Windoze snags (60 ~ 80%) most of the RAM almost all the time.  Try Win2K
Pro on a 433 mhz laptop with 64 mgs or RAM.  I'll NEVER try that again.
Lame Turtles and Snails passed it at will...HAD to go back to Win98...it was
virtually unusable with Win2KPro.

Those self check outs have bothered me since they came out. I don't use
them, I don't care how long the line is. Must be my union background<G> It
means less job's. Oddly, I was in one store waiting in line for a person to
check me out and the cashiers say's "you can use the self check out if you
want" I asked her if she was ready to give up her job, she looks at me kinda
funny and say's what do you mean? Took me a few minutes to get it in her
head that if enough people that use the self deal after a bit they won't
need her. So by sending people to it she is basicly helping to lay herself
off.