Today is gray and sad, so let's turn our eyes to... something gray and sad. The Wal-Marts! We've all been to the Wal-Marts. We hate the Wal-Marts, but we like to talk about the Wal-Marts. Here's what you said.

Gadzodilo shared some windswept memories:

I hate Wal-Mart because it —- and all other big, faceless, bland, low quality chains —- are total fucking soul suckers. I grew up in a smallish town, and still remember the excitement that enveloped people when we got an Olive Garden. Finally, we got fancy dining like the folks in the big cities!

And I remember as a teenager having absolutely, positively nowhere to go to hang out. Coffee shops couldn't stay open because the city wouldn't support them. Even the medium-sized chains like The Hot Biscuit hated it when we came in at 3:00am for coffee and eggs, and found ways to kick us out. So what did we do? We either drank in a field somewhere, or went to Wal-Mart. To hang out. At Wal-Mart. Wander around the store and make fun of stuff. Look at the people. Buy some bad doughnuts and leave.

People need diversity and creative stimulation. They need local businesses and community efforts to grow with and be proud of and support and be supported by But instead we sit around and wait for big chains from the outside to provide services to us, inorganically. I'm glad I left my hometown, and it sucks to go back sometimes.

cfen3 told us who we are:

"We hate you because of who you are, Wal-Mart." Or do we hate them because of who we are? As a whole. That in fact the big boxes are uneasy reflections of ... us. Us. Good people. Great intentions. Thoughtful, umm, thoughts.

We eat McDonald's because it's cheap and easy and fast. We make jokes about Target and call it Tar-jay because it assuages guilt and lets us use a french accent and be in on the joke. We'll run over a nun if she hits the crosswalk a millisecond off the light. We'll send money to Haiti and Chile while stepping over some guy who lives in the cardboard box down the street. Unions have helped the country sometimes, unions have crushed the country/economy sometimes, micro and/or macro. And, et al.

It's endless really, our contradictions. But we never really leave them behind. So we hate ourselves, in the overall, unless some shaggy dudes on boards or skates win some medals every few years. We seem to have built and live in a society in which 35 year old athletes making millions of dollars per year, are offered $100,000 to say they are, "going to Disney World," if their team wins - when we know after they get off the field the absolutely last place they'd end up would be in line for "It's A Small World." But we buy into it. Or want to buy into it. We want to rent some innocence every once in while but, alas, it's all been used up.

(Like this percoset prescription for the root canal yesterday. Man, they go fast.)

And then there was this! Yay!

Oh and then there was a good response to this wah wah Saintly comment:

" Who the fuck do you think uses places like Wal-Mart? Poor people, that's who. That would be people who don't have arts degrees and who can't afford to follow fashion trends and who could give a shit about aesthetics, if they even knew what the word meant."

Even going by that logic, what happens when WalMart is the only game in town? Yes, they've undercut everyone's else prices, but now there's no where else to go. Every dollar earned in that community now goes to WalMart. They then become the largest employer. Now you have an entire populace whose entire economy is based on the whims of a single corporation.

I understand that the liberal snobbery on these boards can be a bit much at times, but you've got to look further down the line than "WalMart's cheap so it must be good for poor people."

Preach it, The New No. 2.

Wal-Martz: Is it killing us?