Sunday, November 12, 2006

A Line in the Sand

I have drawn it. And it's not about knitting.

Yesterday, a Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in town. New. Built right next to the old regular Wal-Mart. Which is now a vacant warehouse-sized building.

Granted, I did go to the old Wal-Mart on occasion, usually when I needed cat food, cat litter and giant bags of dog food. Pony-tail man, however, loves Wal-Mart. Even though I point out on a regular basis that he goes for one or two items, and then comes home with many, many bags of things he didn't know he "needed" until he saw them at such cheap prices.

Enter, the Supercenter. Open 24/7. 24/7 -- I'll say it again. I'm going to scream, I can tell. What in the world can anyone NEED SO BADLY THEY HAVE TO GO TO WAL-MART AT 3 AM? And what about the people who have to work those ungodly hours? And the pittance that workers in Third World countries get paid to make the pseudo-silk flowers, cheap turtleneck sweaters and general "stuff"? And the obscenely rich owners?????

So, I hereby vow not to step foot in this new abomination. Ever. Not at noon, not at 4:00 p.m. and most definitely not at midnight.

The cats can catch mice until morning.

Sorry -- my medication is wearing off .... :)
Oh, and that reminds me -- who gave Wal-Mart the right to steal the yellow happy face for its ads? It's just not right, not right at all.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah. I bought Lily (the lawn mower) at a 24 hour Walmart at approximately 1:30 am. Back when we lived in civilization (24 hour grocery stores, drug stores, Walmarts, etc) I did most of our shopping in the middle of the night. I'm not a morning person and I don't like crowds.

Of course, I don't dislike Walmart. I like it for a lot of reasons -- mainly because it made the difference between being able to afford a "luxury" (bubble bath, a movie, a new pair of shoes, etc.) or not for most of my life.

I'm with Pony-tail man. And buying lots of extra stuff is something a man would do anywhere. It's in their genes. *sigh*

LMB Knits said...

Did you know there has been litigation over the happy face logo? Some guy in I think it was France claimed that he created the happy face and has all rights to it . . . And the beat goes on.

And have you seen the knitter who has a website dedicated to lobbying knitters around the world to take a stand against products made in sweatshops? Her theory is that it would only take a large group of knitters to take a stand on this to create enough influence to change the manufacturing process/rules etc. They are knitting a huge Nike swoosh to present to Nike in objection to their use of sweatshop labor to make their products. Damn I cannot remember the sight. If I find it, I'll let you know.

Anonymous said...

Isn't everything open 24/7? Or am I just spoiled? I remember being in PA and the grocery store was closed on Sunday. CLOSED! Completely.

Oh, I saw that site that lmb knits mentioned......and naturally, I can't think of the name of it either.

A South Park Republican said...

In FL most WalMarts (as well as other stores) are 24/7 so when I moved to CT and they weren't I was really annoyed. I would show up at a store at 11pm and BAM it would be closed and I would grumble. I don't know if I am getting old or I have been beaten into submission by New England, but now it seems weird to have 24/7 stores.

I think the site that people are referring to is MicroRevolt. The Nike thing is at:
http://www.microrevolt.org/petition_overview.htm