A WalMart sellout (7.16.06)

A WalMart Sellout...that's me. My whole family, actually.

The whole WalMart experience is new to me. For many years, I refused to set sandal inside the doors of any company that performed such evil practices as the Mart. Paying its employees minimum wage plus a ha'penny...outsourcing to East Buglefrig, where five-year-olds sewed until their fingers bled, and had their toenails removed with a rusty spork if they failed to produce fast enough...never, NEVER was I going to visit HellMart. Oh, no, not I. Not even should the rest of the world's tampon production suddenly cease and my every pair of Fruit of the Loom underwear snap.

And the fact that this mega-monied shopfest pulled market share from smaller, more home-grown, granola-crunchey boutiques really pissed me off. I have always been one to champion the underdog (having been one myself on many an occasion). I didn't just hate the store. I hated the ideal.

Then...I stopped working.

Following twenty solid years of 40-hour work weeks, I am, for the first time in my life, "at home". (Eek.) My family is on one salary. We're not hungry, exactly (I mean just look at us...can you say "flab fest"?)...but we are, well, doing without. Well, okay...so we were already doing without. Now, we're doing without...even more.

Satan obviously oversaw what happened next. We moved from the east coast to sunny southern California...right (drumroll please) down the street from, yep, you guessed it: a WalMart. I can walk there. (And often do. Read on...)

After moving, we quickly realized that sitting on cardboard boxes to watch a TV we didn't have just did not sound appealing. And the place was getting, well...really dirty. Throwing up his hands in despair, dear hubby Dave announced to me one afternoon, with a sob in his voice, "We really have to get a vacuum cleaner. I'm going to go to..." Here he swallowed hard. "...WalMart."

A hush fell over the household. I think it fell over the entire town. I waited silently, as an 1860s wife might have waited to see whether her husband was really going to join the Confederates after all. And off went hubby.

He came back all aglow. "I got it! I got it! For THIRTY dollars!"

I fell to my knees, and we praised the Almighty Wal together.

And that was it. We've never looked back.

Sure, I still feel bad for the little Guatemalan children who are beaten with nail-embedded wooden boards for screwing on Equate brand toothpaste caps inadequately. But damn. Have you heard? White Cloud diapers are EIGHT dollars. Did you hear me? EIGHT. Regularly!

Okay...I'm off. Gotta go sell my soul. Kotex is on sale.