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College student lives in Wal-Mart for 41 hours
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| StanVoid |
| quote: | DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- For spring break, some college students set out for sun-drenched beaches or cheap European cities. Skyler Bartels headed for the local Wal-Mart.
Bartels, 20, an aspiring writer and Drake University sophomore, thought he'd spend a week in a Wal-Mart as a test of endurance, using it as the premise for a magazine article. His college adviser liked the idea.
"I just intuitively thought, 'This is brilliant!"' said Carol Spaulding-Kruse, an associate professor of English. "I wasn't quite sure why, but it just sounded like a really good idea."
For 41 hours, Bartels wandered the aisles of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Windsor Heights that's open 24 hours a day. He checked out shoppers, read magazines, watched movies on the DVD display and played video games.
He bought meals at the in-store Subway sandwich shop, but was able to catch only brief naps in a restroom stall or on lawn chairs in the garden department.
Other shoppers and employees didn't pay much attention until the end of his stay, he said, when it appeared some store greeters began to take notice -- pointing at him and whispering.
A shift manager approached him and asked him if he was finding everything he needed.
"He said, 'Didn't I see you over by the magazines, like, five hours ago?' I told him, 'Maybe,"' Bartels said.
Tiring to the point of hallucinating, Bartels said he decided to go home before he was thrown out.
He considered the project a failure.
Then, The Des Moines Register, which had been contacted by Spaulding-Kruse, called to ask him about the experience. Once the story ran, TV networks began calling.
He also talked with a book agent, has been contacted by New Line Cinema about a movie concept and did a radio interview with National Public Radio.
Bartels told The Associated Press he has decided the stunt wasn't such a failure after all.
"I'm incredibly happy with the press coverage," he said. "It would be kind of silly not to accept it with open arms."
Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Thornton said Bartels neither violated store policy nor broke the law.
"We were unaware of his presence and if we were aware of it we certainly wouldn't have condoned it," Thornton said. "We're a retailer, not a hotel."
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how retarded is the press today ... so a college kid goes into walmart, sits in there until he hallucinates, and people treat it as an amazing concept. New Line Cinema wants to make a movie based on this idea, FFS! |
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| Ygrene |
| I'd end up camping out in the toy aisle and building a massive landscape with Legos. |
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| MeLLyMeL |
i think it's funny.
41 hours in wal-mart is a long time. Props. |
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| idoru |
| That's really, really lame. |
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| Ian |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ygrene
I'd end up camping out in the toy aisle and building a massive landscape with Legos. |
Last time we went into Asda-Walmart (Asda is a store here which walmart bought out, newer stores (big ones) are called asda-walmart) I wanted to buy hungry hungry hippos, buckaroo & some stuff. The store We use is on 2 levels & has pretty much anything you'd ever need to buy. if it wasn't for the fact they use virtually no heating & its cold, i could live there. |
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| trunks1022 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ian
Last time we went into Asda-Walmart (Asda is a store here which walmart bought out, newer stores (big ones) are called asda-walmart) I wanted to buy hungry hungry hippos, buckaroo & some stuff. The store We use is on 2 levels & has pretty much anything you'd ever need to buy. if it wasn't for the fact they use virtually no heating & its cold, i could live there. |
ahhh so that's how they're so profitable! |
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| tubularbills |
| quote: | Originally posted by idoru
That's really, really lame. |
welcome to iowa, my friends.
stupid like this goes on all the time. and it makes news. because there's nothing else going on around here.
even i was on the news one time, cause i was a meteor student and all the was hitting the fan down in florida back in 2004. |
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| Ian |
| quote: | Originally posted by trunks1022
ahhh so that's how they're so profitable! |
care to elaborate (the fact they own one of the biggest stores here too, the fact it was the heating etc ?) :) |
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| trunks1022 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ian
care to elaborate (the fact they own one of the biggest stores here too, the fact it was the heating etc ?) :) |
lol skimping on the heating |
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| Mebot |
What was that name of the movie where the woman had a kid in walmart or she lived in walmart and her baby grew up in there?
it was based on a true story right? |
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