In The Parking Lot
So I was picking up a couple of small parts at the orange home improvement store and there was a Hummer parked next to me. When I came out the guy who owned the Hummer was trying to get a gas barbeque grill in the back and having no luck. It was a small grill, and it would have easily fit in the back of the Civic if I put the seat down.
Apparently most of the space is taken up by the spare tire, and the guy ended up taking the grill apart to get it into the Hummer. I’m missing the ‘Utility’ of the thing if there isn’t enough cargo space for a small gas grill or a week’s worth of groceries.
Later I had to go to MalWart to pick up something that isn’t sold anywhere else in town, and the person who wanted it would not accept substitutes. I got a good space that was actually close to the doors, and then though I should leave because the Civic was totally out of place facing a Bentley and a Range Rover. The Range Rover starts at $80K for the base model, and Bentleys are about a quarter step below a Rolls in price and prestige. If they were driven by the ‘staff’ they would have been parked well away from other cars to avoid dings. These things were parked by the owners – who didn’t worry about the cost of dings to the doors.
That was certainly more fun than shopping at the Anchorage WalMart. You shoot an employee because he wanted your dog on a leash? WTF, over?! What kind of charge is “weapons misconduct”?
Of course WalMart didn’t interrupt shoppers just because one of their employees was gunned down. OK, they stopped selling guns and ammo during the crime scene investigation.
If you wonder why they took away the suspect’s prosthetic legs – he gunned down a guy over a leash, so he would probably remove one and beat you over the head with it, or bust up the patrol car.
7 comments
Geez… what could be more important than shopping at MalWart? (Love that name.) Just because someone was rude enough to bleed all over the floor after being shot, shouldn’t make people stop spending money.
On a serious note, I think the only people still shopping are those that absolutely need something. Among the people in the apartments my Mother manages you will see more Dollar General merchandise than MalWart’s. They have been priced out of the market.
This should be a time of settling debts as the tax refunds are dribbling in, but many of these people received money from BP for their losses during the Gulf Gusher, and it wasn’t explained to them that the money was income, so they had to pay taxes on it. A lot of these people lost their refunds to the IRS because they didn’t know that. Corporations get extra write-offs for disasters, but the rest of us get screwed.
the only people still shopping are those that absolutely need something.
Indeed. And that’s the case across the country, too. In my area which is quite rural in nature the local WalMart is essentially the only shopping available unless you want to drive another 30 minutes (our Food Lion closed down about 2 years ago and there is no local grocer of any sort). Upon checking out, I’ve noticed that NONE of the other baskets had anything but groceries. You might see the odd bag of potting soil and some seeds, but no real hard goods are visible.
Agreed Ellroon :), and I personally wouldn’t want to come between some of these people and their shopping, either.
Trust me on this: the new prostheses are plenty sturdy to use as a club in a brawl. Mine is some sort of exotic carbon fiber material. If I’m ever run over by a Hummer, I’m confident the prosthesis will survive even as I don’t. And would-be assailants beware: they snap out of their sockets in an instant with a push button!
I haven’t been in a Mall Wart in about 12 years. The last thing I bought in one is a beard trimmer; for all I can tell, the thing may outlast my beard, but if not, its successor will not come from Mall Wart.
(Anyone not familiar with Dave Lippman’s song and album “I Hate Walmart” should do him/herself a favor and listen to it. Dave added a verse to it at my suggestion… the one about their taking out “dead janitor” life insurance on lower-level employees, payable not to the employee’s family but to Mall Wart. Now there’s compassionate conservatism for you!)
It’s the same kind of thing down here, Juanita. A lot of the stores that I always shopped at have gone out of business because of MalWart, while the ‘low prices’ have risen as the competition disappears. They have also sealed agreements with some people to be the sole retailer of their products, so you have to go to there to buy certain things.
You are fortunate to have some choices because of living in a city, Steve. They can’t take over Houston like they can a lot of rural areas and small towns.
Oh, this guy had the bare metal pipe type of prostheses, so they were more obviously a weapon than those molded to superficially appear like limbs. They may also have suspected that he might have had something ‘naughty’ built into one of the pipes.
Actually, I’d like to move over to our Floyd county property. We presently have a Mennonite and his family (wife and 5 kids!) renting it, but they may be ready to build their own home soon, and I’m ready to move back.
It’s only one county over, but the thing about Floyd county is that back in the 70’s, they had an influx of hippies. Now they’re old hippies, and think what you might about old hippies, they kept Floyd with a vibrant original local grocer, agricultural co-ops, and one of the best health food stores around. In fact, Food Lion moved in there thinking they’d close the old grocer down. Didn’t happen.
Sounds like a good solution to me, and some people have been able to stop the spread of the big box stores, generally by simply refusing to give them the special treatment on taxes and infrastructure they are used to. I’m still angry about the deal MalWart got, especially the extra stop light for their entrance, when other intersections really needed lights, but ‘there was no money’. There’s not apt to be money if they give tax breaks to billion dollar corporations. The whole deal cost the county revenue, jobs, and road improvements, but the clowns in local government will do it again in a heartbeat.
There has never been a documented case of privatization saving taxpayers any money, or tax incentives providing a net increase in jobs, but they keep doing it.