I’m not going to say my former south Bakersfield neighborhood, once a middle class haven, turned foul because it bordered a Wal-Mart store.  In fairness to the elephantine retailer, the area swirled into a sewer because absentee landlords sucked the Section 8 tit and, in exchange for government housing subsidies, stuffed criminals and other loud members of the underclass into fine duplexes they, the unwashed renters, could not have otherwise afforded.  That Wal-Mart was there, huge and grim on the horizon, doubtless encouraged the landlords’ lust.  If any other department store, where customers don’t resemble those in wanted posters, had been down the street, the neighborhood might have been preserved.

Concede I must that I’ve many times eagerly rushed into the vast spaces of Wal-Mart, sometimes at three a.m., searching for a twenty-buck bookcase or CDs half what they’d be elsewhere.  Though disliking the parking lot always shabby and jammed, and the forlorn and tattered souls shuffling endlessly through the warehouse, I walked among them because I could find almost any product anytime.  Being occasionally glowered at or jostled didn’t bother me enough to vow never to return, until the last time.  A few months ago a cretin decided to extend his turf and redirected his path by three yards so, in an uncrowded aisle, he brushed my shoulder.  Fuck it, I thought.  If something like that happens again I’m either going to savage him or him me and who the hell wants that or to shop in a dust bowl.  I’m also disinclined to continue funding owners who earn billions but won’t pay a decent wage or provide health insurance for employees.

With these sentiments indelibly in place, I recently received an attachment about Wal-Mart.  I generally don’t enjoy attachments and had never forwarded one, till this –

So after landing my new job as a Wal-Mart greeter,
a good find for many retirees,
I lasted less than a day……
About two hours into my first day on the job a very loud,
unattractive, mean-acting woman walked into the store with her two kids,
Yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

As I had been instructed, I said pleasantly, “Good morning and welcome to Wal-Mart.
Nice children you have there. Are they twins?”

The ugly woman stopped yelling long enough to say,
“Well no, they ain’t twins. The oldest one’s 9, and the other one’s 7.
Why the heck would you think they’re twins? Are you blind, or just stupid?”

So I replied, “I’m neither blind nor stupid, Ma’am,
I just couldn’t believe someone slept with you twice.

Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.”

Source: I don’t know which sociologist wrote this but will happily post credit if I find out.