Yeah, I suppose you're right on target. All those folks would probably be sitting on the front steps on their double-wide, spitting and picking things that ought not to be picked in public. Or on meth, getting SSI and having their teeth fall out. Walmart really is doing these poor, uneducated slobs a favor by even giving them the time of day. What was I thinking?

Oh yeah.

I remember what I was thinking.

I was thinking about how if these people were not working at Walmart, perhaps they would be working at local stores that keep the money in the local economy instead of having Walmart suck small towns dry and send all the cash from Mayberry to Bentonville. I guess I was thinking how those people would have other places to work because Walmart had not run smaller, independent shops out of town by dumping cheap garbage made by kids in China and other countries. Kids who make less in a year than you likely make in an hour--and under some pretty deplorable conditions. Yeah—that’s the other side of the world. Who cares, right? Picture for just a millisecond, your kids doing that.

Maybe I was thinking about the impact of Walmart's push for RFID. Walmart is one of the champions spearheading RFID and it will put people out of a job all the way up the supply chain--not to mention all the privacy issues surrounding that technology. Think of them when you get your next passport, because it will likley have an RFID chip in so you can walk through the airport like a blinking beacon--in large part because Walmark pushed that technology. (alientechnology.com/spychips.com)

Or maybe I was thinking about how these poor sap suckers who are working at Walmart maybe had real jobs with real contentment working in toy stores on main street in their community--or maybe in the hardware store that closed down ten years ago. Places where the wooden floors creaked when you walked in them, things that you could buy to build something in your backyard hung from the walls and the ceiling in a dimly light hardware store--instead of 600 cameras hanging from the ceiling in a offensively lighted Walmart--so that your every move could be watched from behind a smoked Plexiglas hemisphere.

Oh yeah--and how the store owner knew your name ... and knew your kids, and never asked for ID, and paid a reasonable wage to his/her employees.

The nearest choo-choo train store that I can take my daughter to is 50 or so miles away. We make the pilgrimage ever year at Christmas and buy one new car for the train set that goes 'round the tree.

There used to such a store here in town.

They are building another Walmart 50 miles away.

You know what’s fun to do? Go on Walmart.com and click on “store finder”. (Bottom left). Now type in a random zip code (no fair looking for the most isolated spot in Iowa). I have done this many times and I have yet to find a zip code that does not show at least 9 Walmarts within 50 miles.

Walmart is not the American ideology. Walmart (and other big box stores) have destroyed the American ideology. The country is being sold from under us by Walmart and others like Walmart. But I guess that's ok.

Yeah--you're right. I'm such an idiot. I'll go hang out on the steps of my double-wide now since I'm not executive material and all.

Oh yeah--and they demand to see my ID when I use my credit card. (Just trying to keep the discussion on track).