Day 231

I think today's trip to Wal Mart will be my last. I go maybe two or three times a year, typically to buy things like socks, soap, or batteries. But today I felt especially uncomfortable with the massive crowds, the endless beeping of bar code readers, and all the fat people. There were so many fat people, and single mothers, and miserable staff. The staff roster is interesting, a combination of retirement age workers and teenage girls.

If we were to drop our elitism for a moment and recognize that we live in a culture of consumerism (i.e. buying things), we'd have to admit that Wal Mart is the new opera house. It is the new art gallery, the new live stage, the new church, the new local restaurant. Buying things has become a source of pleasure, a shared experience, even a ritual to some.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I gave up that corporation two or more years ago. Well, I will admit to buying two pairs of really cute canvas shoes and a lundry hamper a while back though...the leapard print and purple plaid was worth one trip *sigh*

My inspiration? Well many of course. I'd say my main reason to get off the walmart was that every item I picked up conjured up thoughts of the blistered fingers of a child starving in a factory breathing stale sick air for far less than reasonable compensation.
12:47 AM
Anonymous said…
I see problems with Walmart to be more about company practices than about where the items are made and the children that make them. After all, 99% of products at Walmart can also be found hundreds of other stores both locally and internationally owned.

So, I am inclined to stop shopping at Walmart because of the wages, the land that they rolled over and paved, and so on, not because they buy in China.
2:44 PM
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