One of my deeply held principles is that I won't shop at Walmart, because I strongly disagree with their business practices... This extended until the Summer to the vow that I would never even step into a Walmart.

Unfortunately I was caught in dire need of a car phone charger in Northern Ontario, and after checking out all of the other stores in Parry Sound, I had to go to Walmart - it was an emergency! Fortunately they didn't have the right charger, so I wasn't faced with the dilemma of actually having to buy anything.

This weekend, I was down at the local Mall - Dufferin for those of you that know T. It was only the second time I'd been there, and I ended up parking somewhere that meant I had to walk through Walmart to get to the main Mall.

After doing my shopping, I was walking back through Walmart when I noticed that they had replacement bulbs for outdoor Christmas lights. I've been looking for these everywhere for over a year without success - and 24 were less than $5. After considering my moral dilemma, I decided to buy them. Now, as this meant I had already broken my vow to not shop at Walmart, and I have the folks coming for Christmas, I decided that I could save wodges of cash by doing a lot of my Christmas food shopping... so I spent over $200...

Does this make me someone of dubious moral character....

Absolutely Hung, drawn and quartered, I'd say

Just don't do it again (till they have a sale on, of course) ...

Seriously - can't help - I guess a deeply held principle is fine in an ideal world. Then reality, and christmas bulbs, come crashing in occasionally ...

That's not something I would do. I suppose the fact that you're not comfortable with having done it indicates that redemption is possible but it's not something one can shrug off as a momentary lapse the way one might driving home drunk, stealing a joint from a homeless person or setting fire to a rain forest.

EDIT:

Are your deeply held principles vis-a-vee Walmart to do with their labour practices, their desire to choke out local and smaller competitors or their extensive sourcing of products from low cost economies? If it's the last do they extend to Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Zellers etc etc?

Exactly. Why does WalMart get the bad press and others get away with the same or worse? Pure snobbery.

I don't go into Canadian Tire or Zellers either. I won't buy anything in Home Depot unless it's marked "Made in the USA" or an EU country. That's why we've never had a lawn sprinkler.

When Woolco became Walmart - I had the same deeply held view. I vowed I would never shop there - I would shop Canadian. However, its pretty hard to tell nowadays which places really are Canadian and, like you, I found I could save a bunch of money - so I shop Walmart all the time.

I don't really even know what it is that Walmart does that is so terrible - that other places don't do.

And as far as I'm concerned you can add Canadian Superstore to the list. You can't even call them on the phone if you have a problem with a purchase.

Goods produced in the third world are inherently better quality because young children have such dextrous little fingers. Buy Bangladeshi!

Agreed. At least I'm honest. I won't shop there because I find the fat poor people disagreeable.

Wrong life can not be lived rightly.
Adorno

Asda, aka Walmart where I used to live, was also full of poor fat 18 year old mothers with 20 kids apiece. Three double pushchairs blocking the isles, all chit-chattering on the lines of "What Sam did to Katie last night wiv the broken botal" and Shut yer f#%^king maff" to the youngest child as it's trying to let the mother know it's just wet itself. And diabolical queues at the checkouts....Only went in there if the local newsagent had run out of Special Brew.
A lady friend, every time we went through the estate the store was in would sniff and say "you can smell the poor people". Which incidently got tedious after a while.

Walmart just up the road is positively boiling over in abundance with gay, cheery, "how ya doin" skinny people and mothers showing good manners to well behaved and sober children. Very refreshing I must say.

I even went specially to Canadian Tired this morning to get my car adorned with snow tires, principally on account of the almost accident I had last night.

Anyway, young Sarah, all you're doing is making your life difficult, which may be ok now but you'll be a idiot to go on doing that for all of it. Take a journey up to Alberta and kick ass up by the oil sands if you want some moral campaign to throw yourself into.

So, recently H&M ended u in a massive scandal as it was made public that the cotton farmers used child labour to pic the cotton for H&M clothes.

GAP has been classed as a bad company for using child labour or sweat shops.

Now, in an ideal world, no-one is working more than 30-40 hours per week and have at least $10 per hour minimum wage. Live in a clean house, and don't have to worry about getting fed the next day. It will more than likely not be achieved ever.

These kids and these sweatshops people fret about are in countries with a different culture and a different society. The rescue from death by starvation and/or child prostitution is more than likely the same sweatshops and cotton farmers us in the western world are so upset about.

Imagine you and your family were living in these areas. Which would you rather prefer? Your kid working in a cotton field and have a chance of some sort of education to be able to read and write or your kid working the streets feeding the pedophiliacs addiction and go in to drug use to cope and eventually die from AIDS or any other disease?

Youd probaby stick your kid in that same sweatshop you'd be working at or in a cotton field before you'd sell your child to a pimp.

I buy from stores that use child labour and sweatshops because without them, the people working there would be far worse off than they are.

Your purchasing options must be pretty limited in that case. Where do the local farmers cooperative/mart source their agricultural essentials from?

I buy from these stores because they're cheap as do the majority of folk I assume?