Tell 'em Ray...KMart Sucks!

In this era of economic uncertainty, everyone's trying to stretch their dollars as far as possible. It's no different in our house. So when Rich went to KMart last week to pick up a new memory card for our camera, he came back with two coupons: one for $5 off any $25 health and beauty (H&B) purchase, and one for $5 off any $50 grocery purchase. Today, we decided to visit our sad, sorry Clifton Heights KMart in a valiant attempt to redeem a coupon.

It should be noted that it only takes me about five seconds to come up with a list of H&B items to hit the $25 mark. Before you get all impressed, I should confess that the monthly necessity to purchase both Always Infinity Pads and overnight Pull-ups for Jake gets me to $25 with virtually no thought whatsoever. I thought that our best bet would be to use the $5 for $25 H&B coupon.

Armed with our list, which included other H&B aids like bar soap, mosquito repellant, and toothpaste, we wove in and out of the aisles. Along the way, we picked up some unexpected purchases such as lip balm, a new kitchen mop, a six-pack of Sun Maid raisins, and a sleeve of Planters' peanuts.

At the register, we rang up $67 in goodies. Proudly, we handed over our coupon, which the cashier was unable to scan. To emphasize her commitment to saving us money, she even put on her classes to type in the numeric code for the coupon, but to no avail. She said that we needed to go to the Customer Service desk so they could make the adjustment. At this point, I'm aggravated because the Clifton Heights KMart is really only known for one thing: slow-moving lines. So the prospect of getting in another line was unappealing. But since we're talking about $5 in savings, we trudged over to the Customer Service counter. Because we didn't have enough going on, Rich had a little run-in with a guy whose foot he may or may not have run over with a cart.

After waiting our turn in line #2, I explained our situation to the Customer Service person. She looked at the receipt and starts going item by item, asking us to translate each purchase on the receipt because, as she so astutely (and anti-grammatically) put it: "I don't know what yall brought." Some items, like "RAISINS" were easy to decode. Others, like "HE SPG M/RF" (a replacement mop head) took us a few minutes, which didn't make the guy behind us in line too happy. After we went through every item on the receipt, she told us that we didn't have $25 in H&B aids because things like Pull-Ups, mosquito repellant, and bathroom Dixie cups are considered "grocery" not "H&B" items.

And sure enough, that's exactly how they're broken down on the receipt. In case you were curious, other things that KMart considers "grocery" - the replacement mop head, laundry detergent, and Clorox wipes.

Trying to salvage the day, I pulled out the $5 for $50 grocery coupon because, at this point, I'm not going to lose a battle of semantics to the Customer Service girl at KMart. But, as it turns out, the Customer Service girl has an ace up her sleeve: the receipt, which only shows the cost of the items before the decimal point. So the $15.99 Pull-Ups show up as $15. And adding up the pre-decimal point costs of all the "grocery" items only came to $42, although if you added in all the .89s and .99s at the end of each of the 12 "grocery" items," you'd easily exceed $50.

So, in the end, we left the store, dejected and vowing loudly to never patronize KMart again. And I went home to make a nice dinner of Dixie cups in a light mosquito repellant sauce.