Shopping for Guilt

This morning I went to one of the places I hate the most in the entire world: Walmart. I first started hating Walmart because a friend of mine was obsessed with the store and being there. I hung out with him a lot and we went around to different places just to pass the time away, waiting for something to happen in our boring lives. This was more the case for him than me evidenced by the time that he decided to see how many Walmarts we could make it to in just one afternoon. This happened one morning after we had decided to drive out of town and I happened to be riding in his truck. We made it to four stores in the afternoon and I hated it and told him how stupid it was, but what do you do when you are two hours from home and not in your own vehicle. (Okay there are a lot of things I probably could have done, but I was so embarrassed by the task of the day, I didn't want to tell anyone about it at the time). That happened years ago and the valuable lesson I learned was to never ride in vehicles with stupid people.
We only go to Walmart ever so often, hardly ever on a regular basis. My wife says that Walmart makes her feel tired as soon as she walks through the automatic doors. The longer she shops, the more she feels like a zombie, and when she gets home she has to get in the bed or pass out on the couch. I just feel dirty when I go, guilty because my saving money is stealing money from others. So I still hate Walmart, but for different reasons, and it's not just the store I hate, I hate what's behind the store even more: greed and selfishness. I won't on all the evils of the place including: the tax breaks cities give the store in the first place; how local businesses are put out of business because they cannot compete; undercutting those producing goods for them; ignoring environmental guidelines; claiming products are organic when they aren't; referring workers to the welfare system rather than providing them affordable insurance and or benefits; operating sweatshops in other countries so they can avoid paying taxes; threatening workers with their jobs if they won't work overtime, then not paying them for the time anyway, and etc...

With all that said, I was still there this morning buying things because I can't find them hardly anywhere else. I am such a hypocrite (a word Jesus made famous, of course not in English) and there's the guilt. I really do try to shop somewhere besides Walmart, but I end up back there anyway. Shopping at the other stores probably isn't much better since they are all chains of some major group and run business with greed, but not to the extend or magnitude of Walmart. If you don't like it, I guess you can always grow your own stuff in your own backyard. I am way too lazy for that, but it would be the safe way to live (funny since Safeway is actually a grocery store chain).

I have been watching movie since I got home, basically wasting time. "Everything Is Illuminated" was actually good. It's sometimes hard to tell with the independent movies. "Little Miss Sunshine" is really funny, although not in the laugh out loud sense. Tonight, I will go to my first rodeo, who knows how that will go. That's the nice thing about getting to hangout in a corporate box, if you are bored, you can eat and laugh a lot. The box at the Nashville Predators game we went to had a really great view and was a lot of fun.

I decided to go back on a schedule again. I have some time, but don't produce much with it. I don't want to look back ten years from now on the last ten years and think "What did I do with all that time and what do I have to show for it?" I really am trying to kick perfectionism out of the window so I can be realistic and enjoy life, because life isn't perfect.

Test yourself: How many times did I type Walmart in this post?