It didn’t take me long to break one of my four New Year’s resolutions; less than a month this time. This was my second year for this particular resolution: to stop buying shiny objects that I don’t really need.

What happened was, last week I found myself in a Walmart searching for an item that I hadn’t been able to find in any of my regular stores. Walmart is the DEVIL, people — you can’t go in there and come out with only one thing. Granted, most of the stuff I bought was technically on my list, I’d just been planning to get it elsewhere. But…I can’t pretend that the $5 Corpse Bride dvd is a necessity, it was simply too good a deal to pass up. Resolution blown.

Then when I got home and was putting away the day’s shopping, I couldn’t find the dvd anywhere. I was also missing a tube of lip balm. I’d bought both at Walmart. I realized that they must have been in their own bag together and I probably just hadn’t picked it up with the rest of the stuff at the checkout stand. D’OH! So not only did I blow one of my resolutions, I didn’t even have the dvd to show for it!

Yesterday I was off the hill again, so in the spirit of thoroughness I took my receipt to Walmart and explained to a girl in Customer Service what had happened. I wasn’t really expecting them to believe me, but to my surprise she pulled out a little box full of receipts, matched the date on mine to a copy that they’d kept, confirmed that I’d left the items at the bagging carousel, and said I could go pick out the dvd and lip balm again. This is, in my opinion, spectacular customer service. Way better than I would have expected from Walmart. Thumbs up, Evil Mega-Corporation!

So far so good on the other three resolutions. Further updates as events warrant.