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This past weekend I took the family camping and fishing for my daughters birthday. It was her idea by the way. We drove down to the middle of Utah to a great lake and caught a ton of fish.
What I noticed is that on the way back there was lots of empty space…in the dark at least. Plenty of stuff in the day. What I really noticed is, even on the freeway, it was dark. Cars passing on both sides of us because a minivan with a tent trailer has to be slow right? 70 mph not quite enough for you jackasses is it? Anyway, there were islands of light along side of the freeway that rose out of the darkness like the moon coming over the mountain. Which was happening at the same time but irrelevant to the story.
The island of light was, you guessed it, a Wal-Mart surrounded by several smaller stores all seeming to be sycophants to the great and powerful Oz, er Wal-Mart. My wife said, “We are OK now, there is a Wal-Mart.” I chuckled and we drove on. Another 10 minutes or so (again still at 70 mph and getting passed) another Wal-Mart rose out of the stygian night. I said, “We must be back close to civilization, there is another Wal-Mart.”
That was the joke now as we passed two more before hitting Provo, the first big city on our way back to Salt Lake. After that there were more Wal-Marts and we already knew where they all are in the valley. We finally made it home and speculated that we may have to hit a couple of those Wal-Marts in the future. (Not a joke, when we didn’t have kids (and a couple times with the kids) we drove the two hours up to Evanston, Wyoming just for fun. We would have pizza at the Shakey’s and then go to Wal-Mart because there wasn’t much else to do. Now it is a joke to stop at a new Wal-Mart. And no, they are not all the same. Why just last year we stopped at the one in Price, Ut………)
I think the “old” part of Cantankerous Old Coots is coming out, I am rambling. I just want to know exactly when Wal-Mart became synonymous with civilization….Any thoughts as we go into the weekend?
(I just realized that Wal-Mart should be kicking back some advertising every time I mentioned Wal-Mart in this post. If I got a nickel for every one, I would have .65 cents…enough for a candy bar at Walmart. Oh, that makes .70 cents.)
Justin,
Out here in California things are different, as you might expect. You won’t find Walmart in the big cities like LA and SF. Traveling from the uncivilized Sacramento area into SF you find a Walmart every 20 miles or so but beyond Vallejo (30 miles from the epicenter of culture in SF, you won’t find one.
Of course given the current level of social mores in SF and LA, perhaps your original thought is right. Walmart doesn’t represent civilization.
How can you guys even begin to call yourselves civilized without a Wal-Mart every 3 miles or so????? you have Del Taco’s like they are going out of style though. We drove quite a ways here to a del taco becasue we had free kids meals. When we were in California, you could throw tacos between them
Justin…y’all used to live in California? ‘Splains a lot…
never lived anywhere but Utah, visited California a few times. San diego, disneyland, you know the touristy stuff
I try and stay out of Walmart. It’s better for me that way
Hansi,
So what do you mean by better? You like paying more?