A month without Walmart: Day 4: socks

Ever since I started wearing dress shoes every day to work three weeks ago, I quickly discovered what an inconvenience it is that there are more work days in a week than there are pairs of dress socks in my dresser.

(It's typing sentences like that one that make me realize and appreciate just how much in my life I have to be grateful for.)

I decided today would be a good day to turn the numbers in my favor and went to Bealls in search of dress socks. I really have no idea how to pronounce the store's name, so I continue to refer to it as "the store in the old King's building" even though King's hasn't been there in more than a decade.

I was immediately greeted by a voice welcoming me into the store even though I couldn't actually see her through the store racks as I walked in. I thought that was really friendly.

One of my biggest pet peeves about shopping at Walmart is when one of the greeters doesn't actually greet me. I don't really care about being greeted when I enter a store, but it's the principal of the matter.

Walmart employs people to sit at their doors to greet people as they enter and to deter people from attempting to steal from the store. I don't think it's too much to expect the person whose job it is to say, "Hi, welcome to Walmart" to actually say, "Hi, welcome to Walmart" when you walk in. Instead, they either just stare at you as you walk in or just ignore you as if their entire purpose in sitting there is to make customers feel welcomed.

Anyways, I had expected to pay more for the socks and wasn't sure what to expect from the store's selection. I don't think I've ever purchased any items of clothing from a store in Mountain Home other than Walmart and those purchases consisted of undershirts, socks or underwear. (Click this link for my take on buying underwear as a man.)

Bealls only had two types of dress socks to pick from and from what I could tell, the only difference appeared to be one cost $1 more than the other. They did cost more than I'd pay at Walmart, but they had them on sale at buy one, get one half off and the lady at the register gave me a coupon for an additional 30 percent off, which made my total just about what it would have been at Walmart.

The store almost always has something on sale or a major sale. I get coupons emailed to me a lot because I'm a Chamber member, but I hadn't been in the store to check it out yet. The store also offers 15 percent off to military customers.

I had always assumed that Bealls was a locally owned company, but I learned from the store's manager today that there are more than 850 stores based in small towns across the country. The closest one is in Burley.

In addition to clothes, they also had a stocking stuffer-like gifts. The lady in front of me purchased a telescope. I'm going to spend the rest of my day convincing myself that I really do need the glass backboard they sell to hang on the back of my office door and then probably go back and get it at some point.

The store is similar to the type of store JC Penney is and there appeared to be a lot more of a women's selection than a man's one. I paid about what I could expect to pay at Walmart for my purchase and the staff I interacted with were friendly and informative.

It was exactly the type of shopping experience I envisioned having when I decided to forego shopping at Walmart this month.