My wife will not shop at the local WalMart. The parking lot is a pretty scary place. Poorly lit, filled with broken down, battered cars. Sandwiched between a down-at-the-heels apartment complex, a bad Chinese restaurant, and an off-price jewelery store.
Inside, a chaotic toss-up of off-brand food, ill-shaped clothing. And people. All colors, ages, shapes, and sizes of people.
After you've made your way through the maze of aisles and found the diapers, or ink cartridges, or light bulbs, or contact lens solution that you needed, that you knew would be cheaper here than anywhere else -- if they hadn't run out again -- you make your way to the milling, glowering throng at the checkout. The registers are arranged in a manner to make an orderly queue impossible, but eventually you thread your way through, and pay, and at the end of it all, you receive a receipt.
Did I save money? I think so. Am I living better? Hard to tell.
Sometimes a trip to WalMart leaves me emotionally flattened, like it did John:
And really. I should know better. There is a reason I never go to Walmart. There's a reason that, if I am forced to go to this one in particular, I generally need some form of anti-psychotic medication, or at least a stiff drink, by the time I get out barely alive.But other times, a visit to WalMart inspires me. WalMart is America, where we take all comers. Rich and poor. Smooth and lumpy. Nobody looks down his nose at you in WalMart. Warped body image issues? Not at WalMart, where everybody, including the models in their advertising, is pleasingly plump.
Just, I don't know about any of you out there, and the Walmart stores that may be near you. But this Walmart that I went to today? It is literally the place where humanity goes. TO DIE.
...
The woman in the checkout line in front of us was in her late 50s. But was still rocking bleached blond hair, giant "gold" and "diamond" rings on every single finger. And 3-inch fake nails done up in multi-colors with little rhinestones on each nail.
She was buying 4 large bags of beef jerky. Seriously.
And I lost count, after 5, of the number of obviously mentally-ill and/or otherwise not-quite-right individuals wandering about the store. One guy was shuffling along while talking to himself, his hair all disheveled and his pants about 6 inches too short.
Another woman was hitting herself in the head with a mop.
Maybe WalMart is the village square for the 21st century. A rag-tag lot of sellers with wares from all over the world meet a rag-tag lot of buyers out for their shopping.
WalMart has single-handedly driven the supply chain for household products to the lowest-cost global producers and shippers. And much of those savings are in the hands of consumers. Contrast this with upper-middle market retailers who sell the same cr*p from China, but mark up the price and collect the profits.
WalMart is a reminder that we live in two Americas: A rich one and a poor one. You cannot make poor America disappear by avoiding WalMart. That poor half of our country exists. They live, they die, they shop at WalMart.
2 comments:
I once wrote about a Wal-Mart experience, too:
http://smbmoney.blogspot.com/2006/01/my-wal-mart-experience.html
I don't think I've been back since.
Ah Wal-Mart! The last bastion of the lower class (and smart middle-classers who go for the prices and try not to think about Wal-Mart's politics). It's so easy to make fun of the clientele--how they dress, how they act, all of that.
But shouldn't we be glad that poor people ARE checking out prices, ARE going for value at the lowest cost, ARE getting their needed medications at $4 a prescription?
If someone doesn't go to Wal-Mart because they abhor their union-busting tactics or the way they have treated their employees in the past, more power to them.
But for those who just don't like being exposed to poverty in America--get over it or go somewhere more expensive where delicate sensibilities won't be so compromised.
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