The last bastion
I have now been into a Walmart. I had been holding out as a trivial, pointless protest against all things capitalist. But we were right next door in a lesser store which had no bathroom and D. needed to go rather urgently so we bit the bullet and swung in. I mean I bit the bullet (and very tasty too) and D. ran with his arms wide open crying “Walmart! Walmart!” as if rushing across a field to greet a long-lost friend.
It was a palace of consumption. D. was awed and amazed. “They have everything,” he breathed. “How would we ever find anything?” He wanted to spend hours in the store, finding out just how much of everything they had.
I always feel a bit like I’ve taken soma when I succumb to the bright, easy, clean cathedrals of spending. It really did have everything. We could have shopped for food, clothes, toys, electron– wait, you probably know all this because you’ve been in one.
Sometimes hard is better. Sometimes I’d rather not have my desires gratified so simply and easily — the ease is like water on a weed and my desires grow and suddenly I want more and more and that want is like bindweed, choking back better thoughts, making them fight for space to grow.
I’m not really in a rush to go back.
