It’s About Making Babies!

It was a long day, and I hadn’t gotten to supper. So about 8:45 I headed to the Conoco ‘OnCue’ gas station/convenience store. As I was leaving, a young lady pulled up in a gorgeously detailed new Dodge pickup, fancy wheels and all. She was getting out, adjusting the spaghetti straps to her gown, a lovely black ankle length gown with and offset vertical blue panel, sparkely highlights. Tonight might be the junior/senior prom, maybe?

So there I am, in yesterday’s Bib overalls. “Nice outfit!” I told her.

She had a kind smile, that is what I remember. And the likelihood that the dress probably cost in the hundreds of dollars. For probably one or maybe two occasions.

And for some reason, the brouhaha today about how ‘evil’ Wal-Mart is for announcing instore health clinics came to mind. And all the other outraged and angry complaints about how evil Wal-Mart is, how many jobs they kill and businesses they cause to collapse.

All this anger doesn’t make sense to me. I can only see this much agitation if someone is deliberately buying propaganda channels and targeting susceptible audiences, such as the elderly and unemployed. And I still can’t see why someone would be angry with a store chain. The solution is the same as for bad TV — change the channel. Don’t go in. Shop somewhere else. Let your friends, family, and neighbors know about better choices that you enjoy.

To my mind, Wal-Mart and the other similar stores before them such as Target, K-mart, SS Kresge, Woolworths, and the early dime stores and their progeny Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Big Lots have redefined poverty and base level of living. By offering reasonable products and realistic prices, by use of innovative buying and other business practices, Wal-Mart and the other low-end chains establish the floor of the economy in the US. The competition challenges higher-end merchants. By covering the lowest-end buyers they create business niches at mid and higher levels, for custom work and for better quality products.

So how is it that our country has what I consider a plague of protesters over Wal-Mart, and we are still selling off our daughters at high-priced showings such as proms (promenade) and other ‘coming out’ galas?

But the smile was very lovely.