Wal Mart: love to hate it

Wal-Mart...I love to hate it, but I can't seem to stop shopping there. I try and rationalize it, I convince myself that WHEN I can afford to shop elsewhere then Wal Mart will be black listed...But even I'm not sure that it's true.

The Big Box Rant I posted back in September pretty much describes most of the reasons I hate wal mart, but perhaps I should reiterate in my own words.

Where I grew up, I could get just about anything I wanted on my own two feet. I could walk to the bank, the grocery store, the hairdresser, the park, the community centre, the library, the pool, the toy store, the craft store everything was close by. There were countless options for food; there are cafes, seafood restaurants, Chinese restaurants, Japanese restaurants, Greek restaurants, Indian restaurants, ice cream stores, candy stores and the amazing thing is that they were all family owned businesses. From my house I could walk to 3 different bus stops or the bus depot (all within 10 minutes) and from there the world was my oyster, in short, I grew up in a community.

And the thing that I hate the most about Wal Mart, is that they rob the community out from under the people who live there. Think about your local wal mart, so big and huge and menacing, there is no sidewalk connecting the people on the road with the store and the individuals whose heart & soul is invested in it, nope I only see parking lot.

Although for many it is their livelihood the employee in the store has nothing "invested" into the store and merchandise, they are just another person working for the man. Not to mention that the reason that stores like Wal Mart can bring us such low prices is that their products are not locally manufactured (which is so incredibly bad for the environment...argh shipping), they don't support the local economy or the people who live there. In fact they just increase the pollution by encouraging so many out of towners to drive to wal mart.

Argh, there is so much more, but I am tired now...

But before I go, I have an admission to make...Despite my best efforts to avoid the place like the plague, I gave in and we went to wal mart last night where we proceeded to buy an assload of crap we "needed"...

I can't stand the system, but damn I love the prices...