“Dredd, there’s no way in. Are you even listening to me? We can’t just knock on the wall and say “Hello, Cursed Earth Pizza”.” – Judge Dredd
If I had a nickel for every time I’d been cursed by a one-eyed Romanian gypsy after midnight at a 7-11®, I’d have two nickels. That isn’t a lot of money, but still weird that it happened twice.
I remember when we lived in Houston, we went shopping in Wal-Mart®. Once. We walked into the store and it was simply depressing. Not a person in the place seemed happy to be there. The clerks at checkout seemed to be quite angry, to the point where I wondered if the store’s policy required them to rub six tablespoons of Frank’s Red Hot® on their genitals before each shift.
It also showed on the shelves: towels, instead of being neatly stacked, were on the shelves in a random and sloppy way. There was residual trash in the shopping cart that we selected. Why not pick a different cart? Do I have a fetish for pushing trash around in a shopping cart? No, there was some sort of trash in each cart. I chose one, on purpose, that didn’t have liquid-y trash in it.
When my dog is cold, is he a chilly dog?
As is recall (and it’s been nearly two decades ago now) we were there to buy something kid-related that the store we normally shopped at didn’t have, so we had to trek all of the way to the back of the store to see the most random assortment of mis-stocked shelves that made me wonder if this Wal-Mart© had a store policy against hiring anyone with OCD.
I seem to recall we did buy something, and quickly left.
We never went back. The store wasn’t in a bad section of town, but it seemed oddly . . . cursed. It’s like they built the whole store over the pit where the hospital used to bury all the severed limbs that they amputated when the leeches and bloodletting didn’t work.
I’ve thought about that Wal-Mart© more than the one time I visited it. The place seemed so . . . off it’s hard to describe. It just made me want to leave that store faster than the Secret Service closes an investigation into exactly whose cocaine was in the White House.
After moving to Modern Mayberry, the experiences in Wal-Mart® was drastically different. It’s a small detail, but when I go in there, the towels are always neatly folded and stacked. There is no, and I mean zero trash in the carts and the floors are always entirely spotless.
Where’s Arnold’s favorite spot in a Wal-Mart™? Aisle B. Back.
And the people who shop there and the employees who work there seem happier. Sure, some of the employees grumbled, but they grumble at me because I’ve known them for years. The checkouts are fast and efficient, and if the store policy requires rubbing anything into their crotch, it’s not Frank’s Red Hot®.
I don’t mind going to Wal-Mart™ in Modern Mayberry because it’s not a gloomy place. It seems to be a happy one. People smile while they buy their ham and mayonnaise and potatoes and chicken thighs. They’re polite to one another, and I’ve seen more than one adult talk to a kid they didn’t know to tell them to stop shenanigans in the aisles. And I’ve done it myself.
And the kids stop the shenanigans.
Wal-Mart© isn’t home, but it is a hometown store here.
I think part of the reason that Wal-Mart™ here is different in Houston is that none of us are anonymous. We walk into the store and see people we know. Be a jerk to a clerk? That might just be your friend’s kid who is just having a bad day.
Congrats Whitney, you’ve been drug free for years now!
The other part is I think there is a much greater sense of community in a place like Modern Mayberry. We’ve been here a decade, and while I’m not the new kid on the block, many people I come into contact with have been here for generations. Oops! That makes them sound like vampires. But parts of The Mrs.’ family have been in this area at least since the 1890s. When Pugsley goes out with people, we ask “who” since you can generally infer if the family is trouble just through the last name.
We never let him hang out with anyone named Clinton. I mean, the parties are great, but bad things happen if you get on their bad side.
I knew someone would want an Epstein joke, and I didn’t want to leave them hanging.
But all of that aside – what I’ve found to be a good idea is to avoid places that suck. No, I don’t think that Wal-Mart© in Houston was cursed, but I do think that the people in there didn’t like their work, and didn’t want to be there. They were unhappy. They were victims.
In my experience, people on the Right are happier (by far!) than people on the Left. In study after study, it’s weird that people on the Right are more tolerant of the viewpoints of others. One recent study (LINK) of college kids (is it bad that I assumed their species?) showed that Leftists absolutely hate people on the Right and are scared to be exposed to their ideas. 62% of Leftists said they would probably or definitely not room with a normal person. 28% of students on the Right said they were fine rooming with a commie.
Leftists also show much higher rates of mental problems (I could link a study, but you have search engines and also know Leftists) and are generally far less competent. I think the “far less competent is why they’re Leftists in the first place.
My county voted 85% for Trump, so by inference we’re happier, more competent, and far more tolerant than any Leftist enclave.
What do you call an Italian Chad? An Alfredo male.
Regardless, once again the pathway to being happy proves to be devastatingly simple: avoid cities, be on the Right, be competent, and don’t put Frank’s Red Hot® down your pants.
Deep down leftoid knows it got the short end of the stick.
Being a ward of the state that failed can’t be good for morale.
Even with a Stig Beal those who lean right are happier as an illegitimate stench of EPIC failure regime rules against the will of 80+ million.
When parents owned an Irish themed bar in the 1980’s we had to shop at Sam’s Club for the best price and stock up ability, during a two cart session a porno started playing on one of the teevees!
Never seen anything all that People Of Wal-Mart locally but you can see people who could never work a register in the self-checkout.
I wonder what China does with all the money they make from the big Wally?
Probably prepare for WAR like Russia did the past ten years.
At least the pronouns are right for the fabulous rainbow brigades of Chiquitastan.
China at least puts Chinese people above everyone else.
John – – You described HellMart (of Houston). Want to see a worse example than Houston Hellmart ?? Go up to Memphis (psst: it’s that third world nation half way from Chi-Commie-Go to Noo Or Leans.?)
“Hellmart” is our local knickname for the store….. When you call it that everybody knows immediately what you are talking about.
BTW you failed to mention that every other cart at any Hellmart has one of its four wheels flattened so that it loudly thumps as you force it down the aisles. The noise of the thumping tells the store intelligence operatives where you are. Is their marketing great, or what ??
What I really want to know about HELLMART is: If I do the self-checkout, does that qualify me for the employee discount ??
Jest askin’
Walmart has an employee whose job it is to drag each new cart through the parking lot sideways until there is a flat spot on each wheel.
Ha! Ours here are always in really good shape. Hmmmm.
You omitted the most common characteristic of WalMart™ customers (at least in our town).
Obesity. No, massive obesity. Especially those with “deep suntans” that waddle instead of walking.
Well, pretty much everyone in town here goes there, so the cross section is exactly the same as the town.
We have two WalMarts. The ‘neighborhood’ one is small and friendly. The ‘supercenter’ is neither.
I’m intimately familiar with the model Mayberry, but the town I live in east of there is much friendlier these days. Some things are better if they stay the same than if they change.
The pathway you describe looks very familiar and friendly to me.
My current ‘sig’ line:
It’s gonna be all right
memento mori
Oh, ours is pretty good. I imagine Mayberry in 1974 was better.
It runs against everything I thought growing up, but after converting to Christianity and writing books (“the Change” as they call it in my future history), there are places that are simply cursed. I’ve encountered that myself twice at getting off at an interstate exit for gas and realizing I needed to leave. Now.
I recall this exchange between Novice Adso and Master Friar William from “The Name of the Rose”*:
Adso: “Do you think this is a place abandoned by God?”
William: “Have you ever been in a place where God might feel at home?”
*Eco is a shit human but that was a good book and movie. The R sex scene was seriously hot.
There are many such places, certainly. Fallen world means just that.
Violence, especially ritual violence and evil, imprints upon the land. Many of the spirits drawn by the malevolence taking place choose to remain long afterwards.
Folks out in the area of Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde know what I mean.
Had that happen also.
Adso: “Do you think this is a place abandoned by God?”
William: “Have you ever been in a place where God might feel at home?”
Yes.
I do think there are cursed places. And I think you can feel them as you walk on in.
‘It’s like they built the whole store over the pit where the hospital used to bury all the severed limbs that they amputated when the leeches and bloodletting didn’t work.’
Been reports for years that Wal-Marts in certain locations were de-commed and the insides and subterra used for government purposes. Nothing surprises now.
Wal-Mart is a de-souled enterprise. In the late Pliocene when I was but a spark, all stores were located downtown, and all were owned and operated by local families, almost all of which had dads. The money didn’t go to Sam Walton’s malevolent daughters, that they might have more billions upon billions.
The money remained in town, thus town and families thrived. In the early Sixties came the first chain-malls — small thangs back then — with Thrifty as lead and ten or twelve satellite stores in a little strip. Then K-Mart. Then the fattest princess of them all, Wal-Mart, that slobbering bitch of China.
Market cultures are female driven cultures. In trad societies, markets and marketing is the province of women. Herdish gathering ain’t for lions.
40 years ago, WalMarts were the size of a Dollar General.
Yes, keeping the profits local is better, so Sam’s kids didn’t get billions. But still better than being farmed by Amazon and Google.
John our local mom and pop stores have been stocking from Walmart and Amazon. I’ve seen their vehicles in my early morning visits to WM loading up shovels and such.
When I asked about it they first deny but then tell me they cannot buy it cheaper from their sources.
The little fishes have to eat from the crumbs from the larger fish.
Our local bars and restaurants do for some things. Still buy big stuff via Sysco.
A tale of two cities. One with pride, self respect, and a feeling of success, and one with pride in their new Obumma phone. I’ve seen the same dynamic in two small towns of about 10,000 people. Different states, and much different incomes and outcomes. It is definitely about attitude and what is acceptable.
Not going to say that we don’t have issues, but we’re still far better than the cities.
Back when my kid was little (he’s 42 now), I used to sometimes go to the ToysRUs in Reno, NV to look for something special. Absolutely anything you could want, laid out well, clean, etc. but I had about ten to twenty minutes before I would start feeling nauseous enough to have to leave. Could never figure out why, but it happened each and every time I went in there. I completely understand what you were saying about the Houston WalMart.
Exactly! It was like an emotional drain. Never went back.
“When my dog is cold, is he a chilly dog?”
Yes, and when he gets hot, he is a hotdog.
There! Somebody had to say it!
Works best if he is a weenie dog to begin with.
Or he could just be excited. A hot dog will chase after anything with all the relish he can mustard.*
(*:Thx Dav Pilkey!)
Excellent! But there are no losers in this contest, only weiners.
Love Weins!
No bun intended.
In rural towns, I’ve found even the Super Walmart stores full of employees that take pride in their work. They’re more friendly, helpful, and the condition of the store shows they care enough to at least make the store presentable. In large cities, I find just the opposite.
All people in retail like to be complimented on their work, rewarded for their efforts, and their concerns will be met. I doubt they get that in large cities because people are less friendly, more likely to steal, are generally more rude to employees, and are more demanding without cause. That, and everyone is a stranger, regardless of who they are. Smaller cities don’t usually allow such things. Usually, someone knows an employee, or a customer, and having a poor attitude eventually leads to alienation or outright disrespectful retaliation to an offender.
Well said. The people who work there are locals, and have fairly decent jobs.
“don’t put Frank’s Red Hot® down your pants”
But John, I put that sh*t on everything.
Ha!
“The checkouts are fast and efficient…”
My local Wally World superstore has forty (40! Count them!) registers arrayed across the front of the store like battle stations just waiting for late November and the Black Friday throng to come barging through, throwing elbows and hip-checking old ladies in their zeal to cash out and go. Last time I stopped in for a cart full of cheap groceries and chinese-import hand tools (pre-broken to save you time), exactly two of those registers (2! Count them!) were staffed.
Speaking of regional considerations, when we lived up north on uber-tony Long Island, I never once set foot into a Walmart (they only started popping up like mushrooms on the island in the 90s, if I recall) for fear of running into anyone I knew and enduring the lingering embarrassment of being identified as a ‘Walmart shopper’. Down here in South Texas the Walmarts are a significant step up the retail food chain from the ubiquitous Dollar Tree/Dollar General meth emporiums and there is no “shame” in nodding howdy to your neighbors as you rummage through the clearance bin hunting for that elusive, limited edition, velvet Elvis PEZ dispenser.
Funny how that works.
Wal-mart is going to publish a version of the karma Sutra. It has 100 positions, 98 of which are closed.
Okay, that’s funny right there…
Is there . . . is there really . . . a velvet Elvis PEZ dispenser?
Checkout here is better than there, and there are only a dozen checkout stations.
Is there . . . is there really . . . a velvet Elvis PEZ dispenser?
If there ain’t, there oughta be.
Yes.
John, on the whole I think that anywhere employees take pride in their work it will be a better experience. It speaks partially to management of course, but partially to the larger culture that the store is in. There really are places where on the whole, people are just unhappier – which is then projected out into their work, their social lives, and the location that they live in
True, but sometimes I think there’s something more . . .
Add accountability to God on your list.
10/10.
I am not sure people on the right are “happier” but certainly are more content. We are the “just wanted to be left alone” people. We aren’t driven by envy and resentment. Happiness is overrated and fleeting, contentment is far better. On the other hand, it does make me happy to go to Walmart because it reminds me that even on my worst day I am smarter and better looking than most people.
We are. The latest thing I heard was that the Left was endemically loonie with mental diseases.
Yup, contentment is better.
I only go to Walmart for Royal Oak charcoal, it’s about the only place to get it around here. Usually close to the garden center so I get in & out fast.
It’s close to the only game in town here . . .
I agree with your comments about Houston Wal Marts. There is one in particular which is in a decent area, but is terrible. Which Wal Mart in Houston are you referring to?
It was the one north of Highway 6 close to Sugar Land.