Another Freakin Walmart?!

If you like Walmart, you probably won't like what Uncle Bubba told me about recently. In the small town that Uncle Bubba lives in, there used to be a small Walmart store. It was built in the early '90s and it accommodated the size of the community; it didn't sell groceries but it did have a decent fishing and outdoor sporting department. About a half mile away was a nice grocery store. It was very conveniently located and carried good quality items at very reasonable prices. Both places were always busy and most folks in the town seemed to be contented with the local options that each place offered. The people that worked at each store were regular, steady people from the same community so going to the store was as much a social affair as shopping; you knew the cashiers and the people that worked in various departments and the high school students that worked there after school. Each of these stores were in plaza's with other retail businesses and restaurants doing business right along side of the big chain stores.

Then the Walmart Corporation decided that they needed to build a new store 5 miles away from the little old Walmart store near the center of town. This new store isn't an enormous super center but it does sell groceries. Of course building the new store on the edge of town left the old store building in the center of town vacant. It's a depressing eyesore, and now several of the other business that shared the plaza have given up and gone out of business now that the customer traffic has disappeared. Now the previously mentioned, nice grocery store has closed. To quote one of the former employees, "Once the new Walmart opened our business just died." So now there is another vacancy of a big storefront and another big, empty parking lot that's left a scar on the community. And worse, those regular, steady people that live in the community are out of work.

Now that the new Walmart store is on the edge of town, what used to be a two mile round trip is now a ten mile round trip. As with any Walmart shopping experience, one never truly gets what one wants but has to settle for what Walmart offers. In Bubbie's view, we've done it to ourselves. Walmart may spread like a virus across every landscape but we've infected ourselves with our own bad behavior. All we had to do, and have to do is stop shopping there, which may mean that you won't be able to wear your pajamas to the store.

Yeah... don't think we'll ever get those people on board.