I Think You've Got Some Corporate Greed on Your Shoe

This summer one of the largest Walmarts opened in my little hometown of Sanford, Maine. It was the talk of the town. Literally. I had refused to go. But I went yesterday.

Monday I was at my parent's house printing some pictures for a future scrapbook when the ink ran out. Damn. What was a girl to do? Where could I find an ink cartridge? Surely Walmart, but since I refuse to support that mammoth I had to find another option, without driving 45 minutes.

Ryder and I hopped into the car and drove to the shopping center. Sure enough there was a computer store. We walked in and a cute guy came over to help us. No, he didn't have the one we needed, had we tried Walmart? I told him how I didn't want to go there. He agreed but figured it was my only option within 15 miles. *sigh*

Okay, in and out. We go in, put on our blinders, get the ink and get the hell out.

This Walmart sits on 30 acres of land. The Walmart itself is 198,000 square feet. It has a full sized Dunkin Donuts, hair salon, nail salon, and grocery store. It is disgustingly huge. You know those directories in malls that tell you where the stores are? Yeah. They have one of those at each of their three entrances.

We went straight to the electronics department and looked and looked and looked and wouldn't you know, they didn't have the cartridge that I needed. I was annoyed and relieved at the same time. At least I didn't have to buy anything at that monstrosity.

All I kept thinking about was how one guy (well, not any more) owned the whole thing. One guy (family, whatever) built a store where you could get anything that you needed. You never needed to go to another store again. Batteries? Check. Lettuce? Check. Toilet bowl? Check. Wii? Check. Fish bowl? Check. Bras? Check. It makes me unbelievably sad. And the worst part? This giant has already taken such a hold on my little town that it is the only option. So many smaller stores went out of business when Walmart first opened back in '92 and it is only getting worse.

And don't you let anyone tell you that working at Walmart isn't that bad. It is. I worked at the original Walmart in Sanford. It sucked. They were assholes. I got paid shit. Ugg, it was terrible.

So Ryder and I left and walked around the parking lot for a bit because I had lost my car. When we did eventually find it, I made sure that Ryder wiped the corporate greed off of his shoes before he got in.