Sometimes you can be truly alone even when you are in a building filled with people.
If pop culture and society in general had to have a center point--a fault line through which everything must cross--sadly, Wal*Mart is it. Wal*Mart is hell’s gift shop and probably the first thing terrorist groups heard about when they were justifying their fanatical hatred of America. It is one of those places that has such a stranglehold on the country that I believe everyone has been there at least twice. Because the store sells almost everything at cheap prices, it tends to attract a weird mix of people. I use the word “people” loosely. I strolled into Wal*Mart on a Saturday morning and easily 75% of the patrons were the kind of people that could be called, well…I’m not one to mince words: they were white fucking trash.
It was 10:00 in the morning and I realized I was in dire need of a new television and convenience beckoned me to Wal*Mart. Now, I hate Wal*Mart because of the disgusting view of society it provides and it is really gluttonous, easy and plastic. But every once in a while I have to go there and wade through the muck along with the other 25% of us who aren’t white trash. And I have found that if you’re going to go to Wal*Mart, the best time to see some really interesting people is Saturday morning.
It’s a garish parade of freaks in polyester; a Pandora’s box of missing teeth and incestuous desires and it is safely housed in a large, industrial building. I parked as close as I could in the vast, jammed parking lot and came upon what has become a fixture adjacent to the entrance of Wal*Mart on the weekend: your local elementary/junior high/high school’s cheerleader/football player/girl scout/YMCA organization begging for money. This weekend it was junior high school cheerleaders and, in the interest of karmic retribution, I gave them money so that they can support football players by cheering in sync to their plays.
Here’s the main problem with Wal*Mart; it’s a tangible entity in the sense that it obviously exists, but is has no tangible qualities that make it distinct. There is no smell, even when you pass by the Subway store baking bread; you never get a whiff of the bread. In the auto department there is no tire smell, no earthy compost smell in the garden department, no chemical smell in the photo lab. There is also no color; all white linoleum and plastic and fluorescent lights make the place so bright that no matter what time of day you go in, it feels like you’ve been sitting in a pitch black room for hours and go outside on an intensely sunny day. That blinding burn, like you’re staring into the sun by virtue of a horrible torture. Wal*Mart is purposefully characterless; they infuse no personality because a customer could take offense and that could mean a lost sale. Better to have no defining characteristics than have a bunch of bean counters rending their garments. There is also no sound besides this falsely upbeat voice pitching, “I like the movies, the action. I like the comedy. I like the movies I can watch with my family. Turn right and you’ll see the best selection of DVD’s ever--all at great prices!! We’re ROOOOOOOOOOLING back the prices here!”
At 10:00 in the morning, there were between fifty and seventy-five people in the store and the weirdness ratio was 5 to 1. Wandering through the store, I was struck by fear of human oddities that pop out from hidden locations and stare. People with heart conditions should not take this ride; the specter of death always seems imminent. Even though it was reasonably early, the place was trashed; clothes and items were strewn about and the electronics department looked like the aftermath of some diabolical riot. Everything in Wal*Mart is seemingly in constant movement; they appear to be restocking and moving and renovating the store 24-7. As I cautiously moved through the music/movie department, I kept bumping into displays spaced five inches next to each other.
What follows is the basis for my assertion Wal*Mart is the antichrist: they censor anything that they cannot control. Someone could go into Wal*Mart and buy an ugly, cheaply made, low-class leather NASCAR jacket with Tony Stewart on the back. The logos of his sponsors are attached to the front of the jacket in a manner that looks like the half-wit from Housewares headed down to the school supplies aisle, bought a bottle of Elmer’s glue and stuck ‘em on, but you can’t buy a CD that contains the word “fuck.” You can buy all the offensive clothing you like, but not music. Wal*Mart feels they must be “family friendly” and they water down the CDs to such an extent that if the CD were a human, he would drown. I have a huge issue with this but it’s beyond the scope of this article.
As I walked through the store, I remembered a piece I read in a magazine that caters to the business and stock market crowd. The article stated that the reason Wal*Mart does so well as both a profitable business and a good stock pick is that the store makes a considerable effort to reach out and find the pulse of middle America.
And that is a compelling statement; it makes you either very afraid, very disgusted or completely fucks with your head. It causes these reactions, I believe, because if this is the end product of heavy research on the pulse of America, the pulse is weak indeed. This research is saying we are overweight, possess low IQ’s, are not making a lot of money, have no taste and really really love country music and NASCAR. We also enjoy going to a place where we can buy tires, a kiddie pool, new eyeglasses, cookies, condoms, shampoo, a DVD player, deodorant, business shirts, plants, a basketball hoop, a gun, disposable diapers and a 6’ tuna sub all in one stop. I think this is why obesity is such a problem in this country; people can walk into a building that is completely white, has no smell, fluorescent lights that burn your eyes, is full of weird people and buy all of those things. The moral of the story is that when you don’t have to stray far, you’re not moving a lot.
All alone in Wal*Mart and it was too weird to live, yet too profitable to die.
