Exercising my patience - OR - stupid department stores

Happy Birthday me!
Sue and I were wishing we could afford to rejoin the Y, but alas it is beyond our current reach. Sue thought that getting a home gym machine would be a great birthday present. We had seen a neat one at Walmart a while ago but it had no price on it. When we EVENTUALLY found a clerk willing to speak to us, he too couldn’t find the pricing and said we needed to come back during the day when a department manager could help us. Well yesterday, Sue was there – and a price was listed on it ($189.99) and it seemed like a good deal. After I got home from work, we all went back to WalMart to purchase it. Again, we have to seek out someone to help us. The first clerk we found couldn’t but went to find somebody who could. Three times he returned to apologize and say it should just be a few more minutes. A lady came, scanned the price tag/bar code, and told us that two were on order and should be in within 14 days or less. No, they were not ordered for somebody else – no, we could not reserve one – we could check in later. After pushing lots of buttons on her scanner, she informed us that Braintree and Weymouth had them in stock. Because Julie and friend had to be picked up in an hour, we had to pass. After returning home, we search for the specific machine online to see who else might carry it (and compare pricing). Apparently, that particular unit is proprietary to Walmart as nobody else in the free world carries it. BUT – Kmart has a similar but clearly superior unit by a different manufacturer at 30% off ($195.00) and Brockton has them in stock. Because they close at 10 and it was already after 9, I decided to wait until today – I could zip over there on my lunch break.
And I did - $200 cash in hand – walked in, found the machine, didn’t find a clerk (way too heavy for a carriage and one person to lift), found the service desk, asked for help, waited for help, waited as she paged again, waited some more, met the clerk who said he’d meet me back in sporting goods as soon as he finished helping the other two customers ahead of me, waited, waited, waited until I was 45 minutes into my ½ hour lunch break. (starting to sound a bit like the “Alice’s Restaurant” song) And I left – without the machine. But we want it. Sue and I will certainly get good use out of it, the little kids will initially be intrigued enough to use it at first, Julie can work out prior to Discus competition season. The 30% off sale ends March 1st so I guess I’ll try one more time. Why doesn’t anybody want my $200 dollars? If I could I would get it and move it myself, except – if I could, I wouldn’t need the machine in the first place!