Stores Magazine - November 2007 - (Page 120) POSTSCRIPT lastlaugh Wal-Mart Wedding Bells DID YOU HEAR about the couple who tied the knot at Wal-Mart? Since Chet Eldridge and Danna Hornback met during employee orientation and agreed to their first date while in the furniture section, it seemed apropos to exchange vows at the Springfield, Ohio, store where they work. The ceremony took place in the home and garden section. The bride was given away by a former Wal-Mart employee, and lawn chairs were set up for attendees. Flowers – those on sale for $3.88, as well as arrangements put together by co-workers – adorned the area. The wedding cake was courtesy of Wal-Mart's bakery and, of course, the couple registered at Wal-Mart. The only glitch: the familiar “Attention Wal-Mart shoppers” announcement momentarily interrupted the ceremony. Read This! SIGNS can be informative, directional, educational and, occasionally, quite funny. A sign in a grocery store in North Carolina reads: “Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy.” Another in a plumbing shop reads: “We repair what your husband fixed.” Mall Rats PUBLIC ARTIST Michael Townsend was inspired by a holiday-season commercial in which an enthusiastic female voice talked about how great it would be to live at the mall. So Townsend and seven other artists set out to build a secret dwelling that would allow them to experience mall life. They began building a 750-sq.-ft. apartment in the parking lot of the mall in 2003. The artists built a cinderblock wall and relied on a nondescript utility door to keep the loft hidden from the outside world. Inside, the apartment was fully furnished, including a hutch filled with china and a Sony PlayStation. One thing that was missing: running water. Apartment dwellers and guests used the mall bathrooms. There was another important detail in this mall experiment that Townsend apparently overlooked. The mall is private property, thus making his “secret” apartment explicitly illegal. Last month, Townsend was sentenced to probation for his malefaction – or should we say mall-efaction. ©The New Yorker Collection 2005 Leo Cullum from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved. Swipe, Wipe and Fight MOST ARGUMENTS over toilet paper revolve around whether to hang the roll so it unravels from the top or the bottom. But a Kmart shopper is fighting mad about being taxed for toilet tissue. Murrysville, Pa., homemaker Mary Bach says that when the cashier at a local Kmart store swiped her $3.99 12-pack of Angel Soft toilet tissue, she improperly collected 7 percent sales tax, charging her 28 cents too much. Bach complained to the store manager but when she received no satisfaction, she filed a small claims suit. Refusing to wipe away Kmart’s indiscretion, Bach is seeking $100 in damages plus court costs for violation of the states Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law. Kmart’s not talking, but something stinks here. It seems Bach has taken swipes at retailers in the past, crusading against price scanner errors for nearly 25 years. Some of the retailers she’s tussled with include WalMart, CVS, the now-defunct Hechinger – and Kmart. 120 STORES / NOVEMBER 2007 WWW.STORES.ORG http://www.cartoonbank.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG
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