my friends judge me for going to wal-mart. unfortunately, it’s the cheapest place near me!
i have the same feeling about wal-mart.
In Tuscaloosa- the walmarts were far away from where I lived really, far away or just a pain to get to, and I got dragged enough to wal-mart that the regularity of it made me stop mentally grudging so much, but still loathe the experience.
I always feel like the worst of it is more me judging myself than the people there…it is always so depressing in any case.
now, I don’t live in T-Town. I don’t have a semi-retarded Egyptian guy getting me to drive him to Wal-Mart to get his boss’ (my former boss) groceries and to have me look at the magazine for his favorite rapper that he’s obsessed with.
It WAS T.I. now it is Bun B…it was briefly the insanely popular Lil’ Wayne, and now I know that T.I.P. is looking at a prison sentence in 2009, but is currently putting out his latest album inbetween community service, raising his newborn son and wearing an ankle bracelet out before his surprisingly early curfew…
I did already know about his run-in with the law over his fire-arms possession after his drug conviction (I’m not a fan)…but now I just seem overly informed. and all my former lil’ buddy cared about was how many millions he had and how many cars…that and Bun-B now- Which means I don’t care.
He fed me whenever I drove him, so I’m not going to complain too much.
so basically, Wal-mart = Stress, but routine…
Essentially, I equate the recent increase uneasy acceptance of wal-mart attributable to two things primarily:
The Recession & Their half-honest attempt at becoming more sustainable.
I still think it is a zoo, no matter who I run into (I ran into two female friends of mine there recently enough, and another at the grocery store on one of those outings…so go figure).
I think it really all boils down to consumer preference, for whatever reason- but we’ll pay what we can pay.
Jam jars make the most practical and durable drinking cups.
multi-purposeful products are the wave of the future… or is it the wave of the past just catching on? Whatever — Such items are awesome!
Great strip.
I had a friend who worked full-time for WalMart. Her manager got all the full-timers together for a meeting. She explained that ALL OF THEM qualified for FOOD STAMPS! Isn’t that AWESOME? They could work forty hours a week, and still be considered below the poverty line, so they could get food stamps, which they could then use there AT WALMART!
She quit the next day. There’s a saying: If you work retail and don’t have a problem with WalMart, you should consider having a problem with WalMart.
I’ll drive thirty minutes to shop somewhere else.
The problem is… what if you can’t afford either the 30-minute drive, or the prices at “somewhere else”?
My situation allows me to shop at the local co-op, and the farmer’s market, etc. etc. etc., and sure, I feel good about not patronizing chain stores that pay both substandard wages, and substandard prices to the suppliers of their goods. But it always makes me feel a little nauseous when I hear people (I’m not including the previous poster in this, it’s just an observation I’ve made over the years) with nice fat middle-class incomes getting all self-righteous about how they only eat organic food.
There is a quick, easy and effective solution to this problem…
STEAL FROM WAL-MART
You end up with the products you need, you dont support chain stores, and in fact, are working in effective and active ways to protest and dismantle them.
Though, a lot of people seem to have a moral problem with theivery. I could go into an essay-length rant about why stealing from a giant, global corporation is morally acceptable (and preferable), but I dont think anyone would want to read it :P
I don’t think the reason people prefer to shop at Wal-Mart is purely economical, though that’s part of it. I think a big part is cultural too, they shop at Wal-Mart because its where ‘normal’ people shop, that is, people who are like them, and who they identify with. The cultural aspect is something a lot of people miss/don’t understand. Because some people DO drive 30 minutes to a Wal-Mart.
We may or may not have driven about twenty minutes to get to the Walmart Supercenter. But the Indian grocery has stopped selling bars of laundry soap, and it was worth a shot.
Heheheheehhehehehehehe!
I do not have a nice fat middle class income; I work RETAIL. I have two roommates and barely squeak by, even with a second job. Organic produce is out of reach to me. But Farmers Market produce isn’t.
I refer back to the Cat and Girl strip about “consuming morally,” the one that ends with Girl alone in the dark, eating prepackaged cookies. 8)
I don’t blame other people for going to Walmart, I am well aware that there are places where it’s Walmart or nothing. It’s not the case for me, however. I shop carefully. I walk to the grocery store. I go to Target, which has similar prices without the wiff of, well, unsavoryness that I always get from the Walmart corp.
David Willis, of Shortpacked, did a comic about it, from a retail perspective.
Stealing is never morally acceptable. It only affects the workers: the producers and the cashiers. Production goes up, wages go down, people get fired. All because some “genius” got the idea that he was liberating people for “democracy.”
Seriously, though, ethics are a luxury. Which is a shame and a sham.
Hot dogs; an onion; a… chopping board? and jelly.
Gotta chop that onion on something?
my friends judge me for going to wal-mart. unfortunately, it’s the cheapest place near me!
i have the same feeling about wal-mart.
In Tuscaloosa- the walmarts were far away from where I lived really, far away or just a pain to get to, and I got dragged enough to wal-mart that the regularity of it made me stop mentally grudging so much, but still loathe the experience.
I always feel like the worst of it is more me judging myself than the people there…it is always so depressing in any case.
now, I don’t live in T-Town. I don’t have a semi-retarded Egyptian guy getting me to drive him to Wal-Mart to get his boss’ (my former boss) groceries and to have me look at the magazine for his favorite rapper that he’s obsessed with.
It WAS T.I. now it is Bun B…it was briefly the insanely popular Lil’ Wayne, and now I know that T.I.P. is looking at a prison sentence in 2009, but is currently putting out his latest album inbetween community service, raising his newborn son and wearing an ankle bracelet out before his surprisingly early curfew…
I did already know about his run-in with the law over his fire-arms possession after his drug conviction (I’m not a fan)…but now I just seem overly informed. and all my former lil’ buddy cared about was how many millions he had and how many cars…that and Bun-B now- Which means I don’t care.
He fed me whenever I drove him, so I’m not going to complain too much.
so basically, Wal-mart = Stress, but routine…
Essentially, I equate the recent increase uneasy acceptance of wal-mart attributable to two things primarily:
The Recession & Their half-honest attempt at becoming more sustainable.
I still think it is a zoo, no matter who I run into (I ran into two female friends of mine there recently enough, and another at the grocery store on one of those outings…so go figure).
I think it really all boils down to consumer preference, for whatever reason- but we’ll pay what we can pay.
Jam jars make the most practical and durable drinking cups.
multi-purposeful products are the wave of the future… or is it the wave of the past just catching on? Whatever — Such items are awesome!
Great strip.
I had a friend who worked full-time for WalMart. Her manager got all the full-timers together for a meeting. She explained that ALL OF THEM qualified for FOOD STAMPS! Isn’t that AWESOME? They could work forty hours a week, and still be considered below the poverty line, so they could get food stamps, which they could then use there AT WALMART!
She quit the next day. There’s a saying: If you work retail and don’t have a problem with WalMart, you should consider having a problem with WalMart.
I’ll drive thirty minutes to shop somewhere else.
The problem is… what if you can’t afford either the 30-minute drive, or the prices at “somewhere else”?
My situation allows me to shop at the local co-op, and the farmer’s market, etc. etc. etc., and sure, I feel good about not patronizing chain stores that pay both substandard wages, and substandard prices to the suppliers of their goods. But it always makes me feel a little nauseous when I hear people (I’m not including the previous poster in this, it’s just an observation I’ve made over the years) with nice fat middle-class incomes getting all self-righteous about how they only eat organic food.
There is a quick, easy and effective solution to this problem…
STEAL FROM WAL-MART
You end up with the products you need, you dont support chain stores, and in fact, are working in effective and active ways to protest and dismantle them.
Though, a lot of people seem to have a moral problem with theivery. I could go into an essay-length rant about why stealing from a giant, global corporation is morally acceptable (and preferable), but I dont think anyone would want to read it :P
I don’t think the reason people prefer to shop at Wal-Mart is purely economical, though that’s part of it. I think a big part is cultural too, they shop at Wal-Mart because its where ‘normal’ people shop, that is, people who are like them, and who they identify with. The cultural aspect is something a lot of people miss/don’t understand. Because some people DO drive 30 minutes to a Wal-Mart.
We may or may not have driven about twenty minutes to get to the Walmart Supercenter. But the Indian grocery has stopped selling bars of laundry soap, and it was worth a shot.
Heheheheehhehehehehehe!
I do not have a nice fat middle class income; I work RETAIL. I have two roommates and barely squeak by, even with a second job. Organic produce is out of reach to me. But Farmers Market produce isn’t.
I refer back to the Cat and Girl strip about “consuming morally,” the one that ends with Girl alone in the dark, eating prepackaged cookies. 8)
I don’t blame other people for going to Walmart, I am well aware that there are places where it’s Walmart or nothing. It’s not the case for me, however. I shop carefully. I walk to the grocery store. I go to Target, which has similar prices without the wiff of, well, unsavoryness that I always get from the Walmart corp.
David Willis, of Shortpacked, did a comic about it, from a retail perspective.
http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20050725.html
Kerry… is that you?
Stealing is never morally acceptable. It only affects the workers: the producers and the cashiers. Production goes up, wages go down, people get fired. All because some “genius” got the idea that he was liberating people for “democracy.”
Seriously, though, ethics are a luxury. Which is a shame and a sham.