2023: A Walmart Odyssey

Bad app design and my own negligence conspired against me.

I had been wanting to buy a replacement Christmas gift for the family member whose name I had in the drawing this year. The item I wanted was on sale a few days ago at the Walmart website, and I thought that was the perfect opportunity. I bought the item and had it shipped to the family member in North Carolina.

Today, meanwhile, I had to buy some groceries and decided that I would pick up the ingredients for Jezebel sauce, which I only learned about this week and have desperately wanted to try. I went to Walmart because of one non-grocery item that I thought I might need to pick up, although they ended up not having exactly what I wanted.

One of the ingredients for Jezebel sauce is prepared horseradish. This is sold in jars and kept in a refrigerated case, and different stores have it in different places — some near the meat or fish, some near the dairy, some in the deli area, etc. “Keep it cold to keep it hot,” states a slogan on the Silver Spring brand label.

I know that the Walmart app will let you look up an item and will tell you what aisle it’s on in the store, so after not seeing the horseradish in the first place I looked I went to the app, which told me it was on aisle A33. I went to A33, but it wasn’t refrigerated, and…