Im protesting. Its silent, its with a smirk, but Im protesting the new Walmart in our town. No one will notice or care, but that is what I am doing.
Walmart opened about a week ago in our town. Its new, its huge and you can see it clear across town at the memorial park! Try it sometime. Go to the gazebo in town, at the park by the Uptown motel (Leif Hansen Memorial Park?) and there is it! Enormous, towering above everything else in our little town, even though it's half a mile away. No missing it, we have a Walmart.
I dont care for Walmart. I dont care for big box stores in general, but my dislike for Walmart borders on detest. I hate shopping there, crammed between rounders with my should-be-convenient shopping cart, run over by other shoppers looking for the Jug-o-soap. Its miserable. On top of that, I get the satisfaction of knowing my money is going not into the pockets of American companies, but factories all over Asia. Sure, Im helping them, but what about all the people in my community?
"But Walmart brings jobs!" I hear people protest. Yeah, they bring jobs, but what about all the people they are putting out of business to provide "jobs". Jobs that don't have much of a future, I might add. Not much potential for moving up, or increasing pay and forget about overtime!
It was the same conversation when Kmart came in. They came, they unemployed, they left. The city was able to get another store in there (wouldnt want to lose those tax dollars!) but can we do that again, with a bigger building!?
Im exhausted with "more". I'm well aware that eventually I will have to go in there for some random plastic "can't find it anywhere else" thing, but for now, I'm protesting.
Update: As of September, I have been in the Walmart one time. We went camping and my husband insisted on stopping there on our way out of town. I only saw the food section, which I was thoroughly unimpressed with, and then made a mad dash out of there. I hear they have organic coffee..... if ever there was something that would lure me in, that is it. I'm still protesting though. :P
