CONFESSION
I confess. I have always avoided Walmart. I have always thought that Walmart was place was dingy and depressing. The goods are stacked up, the aisles are narrow, the lights are bright but not used to highlight the produce, and the people are ordinary people in everyday clothes. Kathe and I preferred to shop in Target where the aisles are wider, the lighting attractive, the goods tastefully presented and the staff friendly.
But I confess to my shame that this reveals my elitist tendencies, my looking down on the people who shop at Walmart. I even imagine that most of the people shopping there are MAGA voters without having any idea if they are or not. In fact, this kind of disdain is part of the problem, part of the resentment that blue collar workers feel toward people who look down on them.
But I wonder about some of my negative response, both to Walmart and to strip malls and the disdain that so many people have to Amazon which has undercut Target and Walmart and so many mom and pop stores. There are two things going on in my disdain.
In addition to my social bigotry I am also doing something that I suggest MAGA people are doing. I am resenting, and wishing I could reverse, technological changes that are turning the world upside down. It is computers and the internet along with changes in transportation and the globalization of manufacturing and distribution that are turning the world upside down. Goods are produced with less labor costs half way around the world, transported instantly then sold in enormous big box stores with no personal service and a dingy atmosphere. That dingy atmosphere both at Walmart and the strip malls is one of the things that I dislike. But all that the ordinary people are doing in Walmart is shopping for necessities. It is a simple commercial transaction which they want to do at as low cost as possible. Walmart offers that. Why should shopping be a great esthetic experience. Why should people not be sloppy? Why do I want them to dress up to go shopping? Why should shopping be pleasant? Maybe this is the way that shopping should be. Amazon avoids the shopping experience entirely and doesn‘t have any glitz at all. All that matters is the practical value of the object itself, not the pleasure of buying it.
I am reminded to something that I learned in my years of flea market addiction. A brand new object in the mall, a toaster for example, with attractive packaging would be displayed under bright lighting with soft mood music playing in the background. It would be highly advertised on TV or magazines. In the American retail system very little of the price of a good goes to the person in a third world company or his factory. Much of the cost goes to transportation and a great deal of the price goes to advertising and the cost of running a retail store including making it into an inviting place with wide aisles and good lighting and nice packaging and friendly salespeople.
What I learned at the flea market is that the toaster which cost $20 in the mall, at the flea market without a building, without lighting, without packaging, the same toaster would cost $5. I often felt that in the mall the toaster was worth $5 and the packaging $15.
So why should I disdain both the ordinariness of Walmart or the people who shop there or even the banality of a strip mall. Maybe this is how shopping should be.
And then I remember that the other reason I was addicted to the flea market. It was great fun joking with people, bargaining with people, talking with people. It was a great experience. It was not the $5 toaster that made it fun, it was buying something at a low price that someone else had treasured for years for its beauty and sentimental value and now was passing along to me for a small fee. And I also remember that before I discovered the stimulation of the flea market I had thought of it as being a place where very ordinary people sold junk before finding it to be an almost a holy place where I hummed gospel tunes to myself every time I entered.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 