I vote with my checkbook (or debit card)

I worked for Target for 10 years, and as anyone who's ever talked to my about my career knows, I loved it there. So it's no surprise that I despise Wal-Mart. In fact, I have some long-running grudges I've held against many companies, but Wal-Mart is at the top of the list.

Here are two Wal-Mart stories:

Once, in the Wisconsin Dells, my husband and I were forced to go to Wal-Mart because there was no other store to go to. We needed diapers. While there, a tornado warning went off. Our daughter was with my Mom, but as Jim and I looked at one another, we both had different thoughts ending in the same action: getting the hell out of there. Jim's was, "We've got to get back to Marcy." Mine was, "I am not going down in a Wal-Mart store." We ran out just as they were locking the front doors.

In my other experience with Wal-Mart, we again were there out of necessity. Our daughter's flip flop had broken. We grabbed a few other things we needed and headed to the check out. My daughter placed her foot with the new flip flop with the price tag on it for the cashier to scan, which she did. As we walked out, a security officer stopped us and asked sternly and accusingly if we had paid for the flip flops. We produced a receipt to prove we had and the flip flops weren't on it! She grabbed my arm and marched us back in and to the cashier, who scanned it again and we paid. No apologies. No explanation to the security guard. And it felt humiliating. I was treated like a criminal in front of my daughter. That's good customer service?

So Wal-Mart is on my company grudge list and has stayed there for a least a decade.

What drove these Wal-Mart purchases? No other choice. Again with the desperation.

What will drive future Wal-Mart purchases? I will never shop Wal-Mart again. There's a new one slated to go up about three miles away. Gross.

Wal-Mart: the Evil Empire.