Thursday Thirteen: Wal-Mart: The Evil Empire

My nephew referred to it as such this afternoon and I was very proud. I dedicate this to our blissfully foreign Lina, who did not know what Wal-Mart is.

1. Here is a good article that sums up the evil badness in a global sense.
2. Other evil empire characteristics include stomping out small businesses everywhere they go, locking employees in the store after closing and forbidding them to leave until closing duties are finished OFF THE CLOCK and making gobs of money off the sweat and blood of third world children.

3. Loyal Wal-mart shoppers often tend to be "rednecks". (but there are exceptions, especially in areas that do not have targets)(next week our TT will be about target)Do you know what a "redneck" is Lina? I won't go into the history or etymology of the word, but I will offer a generalized sketch of the characteristics of a red neck. Red necks tend to be largely uneducated. They may exhibit racist and sexist behaviors although it is fairly common to hear a red neck make statements like "I ain't a racist." and then offer a completely racist defense of their racist behaviors. Makes no sense to you? Ohhh you'd have to hear it to believe it.
For some reason, red necks tend to be prouder of and more open about their sexism. Red necks often make bold statements about social issues both locally and globally. These statements are largely ignorant in nature and seldom reflect any real knowledge of the issue being discussed. Red necks seem to be particularly fond of NASCAR racing and staged wrestling matches involving characters that are actually caricatures of different aspects of the redneck personality. Ive noticed that these folks tend to be proud of their ignorance. (please note: there are several fine people that like NASCAR and wrestling that are NOT rednecks). The best quote I found about rednecks is this one: , "They rebel against acting respectable, embracing this counterculture hero—the 'redneck' who is what he is, and doesn't give a damn what anybody thinks." -James C. Cobb (a professor of redneck studies maybe?)
4.As you may gather from that last quote, rednecks are not the politest, most pleasant people to shop with. Sometimes, they also have an offensive odor, because as you also might infer, a person who "doesn't give a damn what anybody thinks" and "rebels against acting respectable" does not tend to make polite social intercourse or personal hygiene high priority.
5. The lines at Wal-mart are likely to be super long and move slowly. I attribute this to the defeated morale of the cashiers and workers.
6. Wal-marts usually sell anything you'd find in a department store. The prices are often competitive which is the draw for folks like me. I hold fast to the ideal that one day i will be rich enough to make the stand to never shop there again.
7. Even now, I do try to avoid wal-mart unless I absolutely cannot (It is a 24 hour store). They unfortunately have diapers that cost almost half the price of other places so they have me by the short hairs (so to speak).
8. It is very rare to have a pleasant trip to wal-mart. If you are not insulted by a fellow customer, (either verbally or through the affront of smell) you will have to look freaking everywhere to find what you want, and you will have to stand in line for an unreasonable amount of time only to be greeted by a surly underpaid cashier who will screw up the transaction at least fifty percent of the time. This will result in the need to call a supervisor.
9. Apparently one of the qualifications of being a Wal-Mart supervisor is that you must be able to steadfastly ignore calls from cashiers asking you to fix their mistakes.
10. The rare friendly cashier tends to be mentally unstable and/or extremely emotionally needy. I once had a cashier start crying during our transaction (it was a lengthy one) about her autistic son.
11. The Superwal-marts (department store and grocery) are designed to be as inconvenient as possible. No matter what two items you need, they are most likely located a football field away from each other. (wal-marts are very big).
12. The automotive department offers oil and tire changes. Our local wal-mart is well known for substandard and shafty service.
13. In sum, to me (and many others) wal-mart is a teeming metaphor of everything that is going wrong in america. The fact that you don't know what a wal-mart is gives me hope Lina.