I don’t want anything to do with Wal-Mart.
I also quit shopping at a major local supermarket out of pique. The store is in a shopping mall, and I was heading to a department store first and then to buy my groceries, so I parked halfway in between, in an area close to the supermarket. It was pouring rain that day, and the lots were pretty full. As I ran across the parking lot toward the department store, a very large, burly security guy stopped me and told me I couldn’t use the grocery store’s parking lot unless I was shopping there. I said, “I am shopping there. I’m just going over to —‘s first so I don’t have to leave food in the car.”
“Can’t do that,” he said. “You have to be shopping here to park here.”
“I’m just going for one thing over there and then I’ll be back to buy my groceries,” I argued. “Are you telling me that I have to park in two different places to go to two stores?”
“That’s right,” he said.
“Then what’s the point of being in a shopping mall?” I exclaimed, but he wasn’t interested in reason.
I moved my car, circling and waiting all over again for a spot. I went to the department store. Then I slogged through the puddles in the downpour, entered the supermarket, and asked for the manager. Full of wrathful indignation, I told him the story, and added, “I’ve been shopping here for x years, but I’m never coming in here again.”
The manager just shrugged. But twenty years later, I still wouldn’t go back in, no matter how convenient it was.
Protesting in the name of principle with futile gestures that penalize me and don’t affect anyone else is a minor specialty of mine.