This evening I took a trip to Wal-Mart. I don't even know why my car suddenly veers left and turns on the turn signal automatically when the store comes into view, but it does.
As I was perusing the wide aisles of stacked items of every shape, I realized that I needed to get to the other side of the store, but instead of taking Wal-Mart's mapped out trails of higher-priced look-at-me-goods, I cut across the sporting goods department.
Isn't this something sacred? I was just an athlete in high school, but I can remember my first beloved pair of googles, perfect and special from Swimmer's Network, a specialty stocker of everything "swimmer". There they were--Speedo racing googles, but not the kind I used specifically that suction-cupped to my eyes perfectly when I nervously adjusted them before a race. Not the same, but cheaper--always less.
Then I saw it--a live bait refrigerator--I suddenly felt tears welling up; well, not really, but for effect, envision me with tears sliding down my cheeks. :-)
I remember the bait shop near my grandma's house, Red's Bait Shop, where I would look down in the tanks and faintly see a minnow dart past, and suddenly, my eyes adjusting to the dark water--his little friends passing. Something was special about that shop where we would always go for chips and pop (soda, whatever), but never bait. I didn't fish until I was ten, and I had been going there since I could catch up with my cousins. I didn't know what bait was; I just liked the tanks and the sound of rushing water filling them as my grandpa and the owner talked over a Mountain Dew.
Wal-Mart is replacing that charm. I hate that I go there instinctively. They make it so convenient. We go there for everything, including bait, which is right next to the soccer equipment. Unnatural.
Some items I remember everything about where I got them and how I paid for them, and it really didn't matter about the price. It was the experience of ownership that defined that moment, and the desensitized environment propogated by the mega-store with dog food and shampooa walk away makes for a loss of ownership that one may receive at a smaller, more intimate establishment.
Posted by Amanda Cochran at January 11, 2005 5:41 PM
Awwww, Amanda....That brings back some memories for me too!! Always running across the field after bugging our family for money to get a treat at Red's!! Those were the good old days....the days of "Air...you can't see it..." and "that ---- was so anonymous!!" hahahaha
love ya cuz!! :)
I'll never live that down. I still find both funny. And remember I ate dirt too. :-)
Posted by: Amanda at January 12, 2005 5:20 PM