On Saturday, I went to Wal-Mart.
The brainchild of one Sam Walton, it is the largest employer in the world, with 2 million people claiming their incomes from the coffers of this multinational corporation.
Despised by the left for its anti-union policies and hated by right-wingers who claim to miss the good ol’ days of “Mom ‘n’ Pop” stores, Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the world.
It’s also still controlled by the founding family, the descendants of Sam Walton. So, if the world is ever to be taken over by a maniacal oligarchy, well, it already has been.
But, I apparently have a case of Stockholm Syndrome, as I defend the captors of my hard-earned cash and small town soul.
I freakin’ LOVE Wal-Mart. Maybe it’s my Okie roots seeping through my veneer of Russian literature, classical languages and love of modern American poetry.
As a wanna-be frugal young person, I can’t resist buying tires for less than $300, or two-for-one deals on deodorant or a case of decent beer for $13.
I also bought my iPhone at Wal-Mart, as well as my current favorite shirt.
But don’t get me wrong. I don’t like Wal-Mart. I love it.
If you’ve ever watched “The Office,” you know of the infamous love affair between Michael Scott and Jan Levinson-Gould. Jan and Michael definitely loved each other, yet they also seemed to despise one another.
Michael often talks passively of Jan’s strangleholds over him, like the time he off-handedly mentions she has made him get three vasectomies.
Jan also seems to despise Michael. She corrects his grammar, his sentence structure, chides his social skills and then berates him both privately and in public.
Yet, she cares for him. In one episode she throws one of his beloved trophies across the room, and at the end of the show is seen attempting to glue the piece back together.
She doesn’t like Michael, but she obviously cares about him enough to keep making things work, just as he has a warped, child-like way of loving her.
This is Wal-Mart and me. I’m Jan and Wal-Mart is Michael. I love Wal-Mart for what it gives me, which is a sense of frugality and efficiency””the one-stop shop.
And Wal-Mart loves me in a benign way. It keeps its prices low and its employees basically polite, while I berate the store as filthy and miserly.
If it’s really true their employees are paid barely minimum wage, I feel a bit bad for encouraging such a lousy practice.
But as a near-libertarian free-marketer, I also see Wal-Mart as an empire brilliantly constructed by another human being. That’s something I can respect.
Plus, I can get my car’s oil changed for $31, while buying a box of Frosted Mini Wheats for $2.50 and popping into McDonald’s for a $1 32 oz. Diet Coke.
While I sip my Coke, I’ll contemplate my hand in bringing down small businesses across America.