I can’t hold it in any longer.  It makes no sense and it bothers me on a subcutaneous level, therefore it must be expunged.

I miss Wal-Mart.

Phew!  I can’t believe how hard that was to say.  If you don’t know me, a little background:

I HATE Wal-Mart.  They are evil.  Everytime I watch a James Bond film or parody of similar ilk and discover that the villain is the head of an evil corporation, I think of Wal-Mart.  Along with several shady petroleum and pharmaceutical companies, it’s the closest we’ll get to cinematic-quality evil.  Save Money, Live Better, Crush the Weak.  Wal-Mart is powered by Unicorn Tears, Baby’s Blood, and Black Diamonds.

Growing up in a small town in Texas, the only thing that there ever was to do was go to Wal-Mart.  I remember one night I went in at 3am with my girlfriend at the time.  We spent three hours there and left having purchased only duct tape and promise rings.  The height of fun and excitement, ye Olde Wal-Mart was.

I even worked at Wal-Mart, many many moons ago.  I was sixteen.  It actually wasn’t bad. The pay was shit, the hours were shit, but we got breaks and our direct management was serene and fair.  We banded together as employees and tried our best to create a family beneath harsh flourescent lighting.  Aside from missing out on six-months’ worth of the “best years of my life”, it wasn’t bad.  I left the company relatively unscathed, with the exception of a girl I met working there who ransacked my life and siphoned my energy away for about three years, but that’s another story.

It wasn’t until a few years later that the company turned to the dark side, as it were, and really started the descent into unabashed evil.  I heard a few whispers here and there about locations springing up in smaller markets at an alarming rate and choking out local businesses, and I shrugged it off as capitalism.  We have anti-monopoly laws in this country but aside from that, get out there and get that money, motherfucker!!!!!

But then I heard more specific stories that delved further beneath the veneer of their trademark happy face.

Aww, ain't he cute? Too bad he's EVIL!!!!

There was the trampling death a few years ago on Black Friday.  Need more?  There was the worker there who was hit by the semi and lost her short-term memory who had to be reminded each day that her son had died in the service of his country whom Wal-Mart was suing for $500,000 in retribution fees for their healthcare provider.  Don’t believe me?  There are several documentaries you can watch that further examine their atrocities and give light to their underhanded strategies to keep costs and prices down so that they can choke out local businesses and take over the fucking world.

So, yeah, evil.  I haven’t shopped there in almost four years.

But lately I’ve started to miss it.  It’s high-ceilings, colorful electronics department, wide aisles (check out this website for an example of why the aisles are so wide), 24-hour mutant watch, vast selection of toys (I am a child, of course), and that brutal lighting that I mentioned earlier.  It’s a trainwreck of classic American design, like New Jersey.  Something in me in the past few days really misses the place, and it’s the source of tremendous self-loathing.

I think I’ll go next week and just not buy anything.  Just wander around and look at mutants.  I’ll go on a Tuesday, which coincidentally is free-Museum day in San Diego, so I can just convince myself that it’s part of my artistic appreciation efforts. 

I really can’t figure it out, but I had to share it with someone before it completely consumed me.

Oh yeah, and I’ve been watching “Stormchasers“, hence the title.