It was one of those days. My windshield wiper blade conveniently fell apart on a wintery, slushy afternoon during heavy use; thus a stop at O'Reilly Auto Parts. Normally I would turn to Amazon for something like this, but I just could wait 2 days.
I've actually never been inside an O'Reilly, but I found the store to be pretty self-explanatory and fully staffed. I read the signs hanging above each of the aisles and quickly found where the windshield wiper blades we located.
My intent wasn't to buy the cheapest blades, but that's what happened. I wasn't going to pay for the most expensive and the mid-grade blades were sold out in one of the sizes I needed. Boo. Can you really go wrong with Bosch blades, though? That appears to be O'Reilly's go-to brand, as well as Rain-X.
I grabbed my blades and headed to the check-out counter. 6ft stickers for social distancing are on the floor and they have storage totes and rope in front of the counters so you can't get too close to staff. I found this awkward (short arm problems), as I was leaning over the rope to use the credit/debit machine. Masks are also required inside the store, which I really appreciate. Can they enforce this policy? No. There was one idiot inside who wasn't wearing one and seemed totally unfazed by his lack of respect for every other staff person and customer in the store.
As I mentioned, the store was fully staffed. The employee who checked me out was very friendly, but it's always a plus when there's an employee staffed to walk the sales floor in stores like these and specifically help customers. I knew what I wanted, but I'm not sure all other customers would. Maybe they normally walk the sales floor, but with COVID have dialed it back. They were also very busy, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Competitive prices, great business hours, clean location = recommend. read more
