Walmart lies.

Just for the record, Walmart totally lied to me and knew they were lying and did it anyway. 

One day I went into the store, as one does, and forgot to bring my reusable bags. The People's Republic of New York has outlawed the complementary plastic bags that have been used for forty-odd years, but grocery stores all have paper bags that the consumer can buy for a nickel. That's the law, and they all comply. 

Except that this time, with a cart full of Walmart crap, I pulled up to the checkout to find that the paper bags were no longer available. I had forgotten my stupid and probably germ-laden reusables, but figured I could blow forty cents like a Rockefeller on paper bags. But no -- no paper bags anymore. 

I guess I could have just taken everything out of the store loose, but that would be hard to deal with in the car, and that's if the Greeter Patrol didn't stop me because it looked like I hadn't checked out. This is not some lawless horror show like Portland or Chicago, where one just takes what one wants and leaves. So I bought some more stupid reusable bags. 

When I got home, I wrote to Walmart, asking what was up with no paper bags. Sadly, I did not retain the conversation, but the poor schlub (probably on the other side of the world) explained to me that this was Walmart's latest effort to save the environment in which we live, by doing away with paper bags. 

Uh-huh. Okay. I thanked the person with the phony name and said I knew he/she/it was lying, but had to repeat the company line. 

Proof came a couple of months later, when I was in Pennsylvania, and stopped into get a couple of things from their Walmart. And what was at all the checkouts? 

Plastic bags. 

So clearly, Walmart -- a company that sells more cheap and easily broken plastic garbage than any other on Earth -- doesn't give a damn about the sainted environment. (I know, you're heading for the fainting couch as you read those words.) 

I still don't know why the New York Walmart decided to make life even more annoying for its customers than the law requires. I doubt they think that New York's environment must be preserved but Pennsylvania's can go to hell. But, yeah, Walmart lies, just like every other damn institution these days. You literally cannot trust any institution to tell the truth about the slightest thing. 

Shame on you, Walmart. You can't even be honest when it would cost you nothing. I shall be making a greater effort to avoid Sam Walton's misbegotten beast in the future.