Thursday, December 21, 2006

Well, That Was An Adventure...

What with all the Christmas rush, and my brother being in the hospital, I had forgotten to blog about our little Walmart adventure a couple of weeks ago...

The girls and I went grocery shopping that Saturday morning, as we usually do (though most times it's just me). The store was crazy busy, due to the holiday shopping, I guess - it's not usually that bad when I do my food shopping.

We were just about done, getting the last couple of things from the frozen aisles, when we smelled something that smelled just like burning hair. Eww. We looked around, but didn't see anyone looking too panicked about it, and couldn't see any smoke or anything, so we finished shopping & walked over to the registers. We usually use the Self-checkout lines, but when we got to those, there were 4 or 5 Walmart employees standing near them, looking at the top area of one of them. Still no smoke, but the smell was stronger there, so we weren't about to risk trying to use one.

We went to the other end of the registers, to one of the regular ones, & got in line. Right when we got up to where we could unload the cart & pay for our stuff, they started evacuating the store.
Damn. Soooo close. We had to leave the cart there while they cleared the store, so we went outside and waited. If it wasn't too long, I wasn't leaving without going back in for my stuff - after I had spent 2 hours shopping, because some of what we had gotten was Christmas presents.

They had us get all the way away from the building, so we sat in our car and waited, while the 3 firetrucks sat at the entrances to the store, and we watched the firefighters look for something to fight. They walked around on the roof, and looked into some areas that must have been access doors or something, and I'm sure some of them were inside the regular part of the store, checking it out.

After about 30 minutes, those of us who hadn't left were able to go back in & get our stuff. The cold food was still cold, so I didn't end up needing to swap anything out like I thought I might have to. The employees had to do a sweep of the store, and bring all the abandoned carts up to customer service. I bet they spent the rest of that day putting stuff back, too.

I have to say, as much as people rag on Walmart, the people working there handled the evacuation very well - they got it done quickly and safely once they knew it had to be done, and then got right back to work as soon as we were all allowed back in, and kept a decent attitude, even though they knew they were going to have a shitty afternoon picking up after all the people who had just left the carts full of stuff everywhere.

So that's our little adventure. I think I like regular boring days better. ;-p

7 Comments:

Blogger NML/Natalie said...

Glad to hear that your bro is out of the woods. I wonder what that burning smell was though...

12/22/2006 5:35 AM  
Blogger GUYK said...

Merry Christmas, Jen to you and yours from Sweetthing and me..

12/23/2006 8:46 AM  
Blogger Just-Me-Jen said...

I dunno, NML - I forgot to check the paper afterwards. It sure didn't smell electrical though. More like an overheated hairdryer... I'm glad my bro is out of the woods, too. He's part of my family that I only found a few years ago - I haven't had nearly enough time with 'em yet!

Thanks, Guyk - you too, two!!! :-D

12/24/2006 8:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a blog-worthy experience! I'm jealous!

Merry Christmas to you, the girls and all your animals!

12/24/2006 11:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow, Walmart impressed me. The Wal-Mart I always shop at near my house is always so packed no matter what time you go. I go there when I need alot of stuff though, much cheaper than my regular grocer. Although I like the service at my neighborhood Raley's.

Glad to hear you were safe and unharmed. What was the deal with the burning hair smell?

12/24/2006 6:38 PM  
Blogger Just-Me-Jen said...

Janet - thanks! You too!

Survivin - I still don't know! I'm not sure they ever actually had a fire, but the firefighters did check everything out, and the smell was gone when we went back in.
I grocery shop there 'cause it's much cheaper than the other places. I don't mind it there, I just bring my iPod & do what I need to do. :-)

12/25/2006 6:34 AM  
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