Walmart, you Evil Temptress

Dirty, dirty man. Whore. Child abuser. American.

I feel proud of few things: my three bagpiping first prizes when I was like 18, being smoke and drink free for almost 5 years, and never having stepped foot inside a Walmart.

Today, my Wal-pride was left in tatters. We got a flat tire and the only game in town for repair was Walmart. (That corporate siren that leads us all to savings and small town wreckage.) With a reasonable 40 minute wait and freezing weather, the only thing to do was to walk around the store. I stepped in and looked around. I was not hypnotized by the glaring fluorescents or the massiveness of the place, but by prices! My God!! The prices. I was looking at $20 picture frames in Manhattan and here they were for $3. I had to have. And probably made off the backs of illiterate brown children. My eyes glazed. Like going to the dark side, I quickly didn't fight it.

Then there were crew socks (all cotton) six pair for $5!!! This could feed the child in Bangladesh who made them for a year, but I had to have! What happened to standing up for something? $5 for 6 pair is what happened, my friends. I was drunk on savings. I went to check out, but there were greeting cards for a song. Do you know how much it costs to say Happy Birhtday these days? Or to have some greeting card writer say it for you? Loads. Here were cards dyed with the blood of foreign youth and I had to have them all!! After the second time through the check out and a pee break, I was trying to get back to the automotive department without looking at the shiny objects ala that melting face scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark' "Marian, look away," I wanted to shout, but it was too late-- plastic hangers 6 for $1.38. And wooden coat hangers (Ganchos para ropa!!) for the price of a stick of gum. God help the little children as I was no use.

I told the woman at my 3rd check out that this was my first time in a Walmart. She said "THIS Walmart?" "No, ANY Walmart." I had to tell her as if I was telling a priest I only murdered once in the hopes the Hail Marys would be less. She could not believe what I was saying as if the only explanation was I just got out of a POW camp in some 3rd world country down the road from where they have their mixing bowls made by second graders. Sigh, I could not tell her is was for ethical reasons as I had already bathed in the corportate price-gouging orgy of this place. I was no longer pure. I was filthy with savings.

I made it back to Automotive and we got the hell out. I do not know how I will feel in the morning. But I will love my hangers and socks and cards and frames. God help me.