A singular example of 'having to wait for a few minutes' in Home Depot doesn't really help make your case.
Whatever we might not like about the 'Big Box' nature of it ... 'Home Depot' is actually an excruciatingly example of that which is articulated in the article.
HD is this massive place where you can buy a gazillion different types of products (and services); there is an amazing degree of variety and specialization in every little aspect of it all.
Home Depot is in many ways a luxury store of the suburban middle class, a blatant example of the massive surpluses inherent in the modern economy. It's a testament to a lot of things. It's a kind of 'bourgeois for the masses'.
Consider for a moment that such a thing doesn't even exist in Europe! Now, most of this is cultural, in that, for a variety of historical reasons, they don't have that 'DOY' kind of culture; but make no mistake, it's also economic. People generally don't have the garage space (or a garage/shed) in which to store all of the semi useful bounty they collect from such a place. And neither the income to support it.
If HD were a place wherein it was impossible to get service, where staff 'knew nothing' and it was a desperately terrible business, then I think there'd be a point to be made but as it stands ... 'having to wait in line once for something' is almost crossing the line into entitlement.
And of course, the reason lines existed in the Soviet Union is something else entirely, and so the comparison is problematic to begin with.
Education and Health Services are 'problem areas' for capitalism, at least in the American sense, but I suggest with some meaningful reforms, it could work out. A handful of European nations have 'somewhat/mostly private' though still 'socialized' systems that work well.
"He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution.". This is really a historical statement. If we can move past issues of national pride and the 'we are better / I told you so' jingoisms, there's a lot to be learned from this. In fact, so few statements communicate so much.