Wal•Mart: The Day After

In what must have been some kind of L Tryptophan-induced stupor that left me vulnerable to suggestion, I agreed to do the Christmas shopping for my wife at Wal•Mart™ on the day after Thanksgiving. Perhaps I felt sorry that she had to work on this most sacred day of consumption, but not only had I agreed to this thankless task, but I agreed to begin my adventure at 5:30 a.m. so she could take full advantage of the ubelievable (i.e. loss-leading) specials that had appeared in the junk-mailer the previous week.

Now, normally I won't even shop at Wal•Mart™ for the obvious socio-economic reason of perpetuating a culture of sub-standard wage-slavery (as well as reviving disturbing memories of witnessing the now-defunct Wal•Mart™ cheer at the store in Commerce, Twp. - it reminded me of those old news reels that showed groups of similarly dressed Chinese doing excercises while chanting Communist slogans), but it was also this particular store's Grand Opening and my wife was so worried about missing a once-in-a-lifetime sale I couldn't bring myself to protest. Besides, if anyone should reap the benefits of cheap imported junk from Mexico, China, Korea and India it should be working-class strugglers like us whose long-lost manufacturing jobs have been flooding to those countries for over a decade.

Wal•Mart shouldn't be for the wealthy, Lexus-driving, McMansion-owning gentrified yuppies I've seen there. They shop with an upturned nose, hunting for deep discounts when they could very easily afford the malls and boutiques (of which there are plenty in this area) that were specifically designed to attract them. But I do revel in irritating these machiavellian bargain-hunters; standing a little too close to them in the aisles, breathing a little too hard and generally making a nuisance of myself. If they're willing to mix with the hoi polloi to save 39¢ on a economy-sized jar of petroleum jelly and a bargain-bag of latex finger-cots, I'm more than willing to provide the class-discomfort for that guilty pleasure (of course, my rudeness can be quickly disarmed with a simple nod and a smile). So many endure so much for the Wal•Mart experience.

When I arrived in the parking lot it began to dawn on me what a terrible mistake I'd made by coming. It was cold, rainy and already about 300 people were standing in line with umbrellas, plastic bags and whatever they could use to keep themselves dry until those magical glass doors opened at 6 a.m. Parked over on the west side of the lot were two semi trailers, one loaded with 27" flat-screen television sets and the other with DVD players. The trailers were flanked by two men on each side, ready to unload these hot items or, perhaps, beat the customers back with clubs if needed.

With a crumpled shopping list and the Wal•Mart junk-mailer in hand, I joined the crowd and waited in the cold November rain. Finally, the line began to move.

It started slowly enough, like the stumbling locomotion of a cattle herd making its way out into the open range, but it quickly accelerated into a desperate jog toward the door. Whatever guise of politeness and social grace that kept the line orderly quickly dissipated and became every man, woman and child for themselves. No time for courtesy now, thank you very much, there were deals to be had.

Just inside the glass doors the crowd frantically tried to wrestle shopping carts out from the corrall, pulling backward while a stampede pushed from behind. If I wasnt't so amused by this spectacle of pushing and pulling, bumping and grumbling, I might have been concerned for my safety (only later did I hear about the woman who was knocked unconscious in a Florida WalMart on the very same day). In any case, I was glad I didn't bring my wife and daughter - this was going to get ugly.

I yanked my own cart from its captivity and made the dangerous maneuver backwards and left, around the end of the promotional isle. After a hard right, I found myself nearly jogging towards the back of the store; not to get to that cheap, off-brand DVD player my wife wanted for our daughter's room, but to avoid getting bumped in the ass and ankles by the shopping carts charging behind me. Already, people were zooming in and out of the aisles like frenzied Tijuana cab drivers who consider stop signs and red lights mere suggestions. I felt the need to escape to an open space, somewhere, anywhere I could collect my nerves before proceeding.

I dodged the oncoming traffic and swerved into an empty aisle stocked with plastic food containers then down another stocked with pots and pans. Thankfully, Housewares had been spared from any riot-inducing deep-discounts. But I realized I didn't know where I was in relation to where I was going (i.e. electronics). I couldn't see above the tall racks of merchandise to get my bearings. Somewhere, I'm sure, a store designer was chanting, "Disorientation causes discomfort, discomfort causes anxiety, anxiety causes impulse purchasing...". I resisted the urge to buy a juicer for my office and climbed upon the bottom shelf of the housewares rack to reorient myself. Once I had my bearing (due south) I pushed on toward electronics which, I figured, should be in chaos by now.

When I arrived in electronics I parked my cart in an aisle perpendicular to the main aisle which was congested with shoppers. I figured I'd make better time on foot than the men with 27" flat-screen televisions teetering on edges of their carts. The deep-discount specials featured in the junk-mailer were stacked in the middle of the main aisles all along the perimeter of the store. My mark was a $39.99 DVD player that, hopefully, would allow me to again watch the news in the living room instead of yet another encore performance of "Finding Nemo".

The first DVD player I came across was in the electronics section looked like the one in the mailer, but was $59.99 - twenty dollars more than the advertised price. That couldn't be it, so I continued along the main aisle sans-cart. Near the shoe section and a good distance from electronics, I found another for DVD player by the same manufacturer and again with nearly identical packaging, but this time for $49.99. Still, not the one advertised in the mailer. Obviously, I was being manipulated by some clever marketing gurus. I wondered how many shoppers, frustrated with the frantic search for that amazing deal, just grabbed the first package they saw that looked like the one in the mailer and headed toward the cashier? Enough to make a tidy profit, I'd bet.

Finally, in an aisle off the Women's clothing section I found a nearly empty wooden pallet with a pile of shrink-wrap on it and one $39.99 DVD player - but with a badly damaged box. Too late and too slow for the Wal•Mart veterans, I settled for the $49.99 version and headed back to my cart. Within the next fifteen minutes, I managed to collect reasonable alternatives to the rest of the items on my list (e.g A remote controlled toy Hummer became a remote-controlled toy Jeep Wrangler, etc...). By 6:30 am, I was nauseated by the bevy of activity around me. It was all I could do to get through the checkout without vomiting from overstimulation. When I finally made it through the electronic double-doors and into the parking lot, I vowed to never have this experience again.

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In the U.S., consumption has become a social pacifier; as long as we can get the goods cheaper than we should or expect to, we feel we've made some short-term accomplishment that staves-off the fear of slipping behind. We're temporarily satisfied, if not happy or fulfilled. Sure, at Wal*Mart we might get more for our money now, but in the end, I fear, we may get more than what we bargained for - and less than what we'd hoped.