Maybe some of you older Substackers will remember the "mall walking" craze a few decades back. With Fitbits, big box stores prove to be good places to get in your all-important steps.
Thank you, Jason. In Garrison Keillor's foreword to his book, Good Poems for Hard Times, he rants about today's beleaguered society. One of the symptoms is when our "public life is Walmart." That hit me between the eyes because Walmart is the only place I really feel safe other than hanging with the ladies at the yarn store. Because it is so big and the aisles are wider, people don't feel as crammed in there as they do in the other grocery stores. And I've had some pleasant encounters in there too, whereas people in the Smith's have been more combative and stressed. It's probably the spacial that alleviates a lot of that stress. Western Americans don't like to be fenced in, literally or figuratively. Even so, my Walmart has become a lot more crowded lately with people who seem to be refugees. I don't know who they are, but they're mostly from California and a tad pricklier.
This was great! You really capture the insanity we have inflicted on ourselves with big box stores and all the rest.
Thank you, Jason. In Garrison Keillor's foreword to his book, Good Poems for Hard Times, he rants about today's beleaguered society. One of the symptoms is when our "public life is Walmart." That hit me between the eyes because Walmart is the only place I really feel safe other than hanging with the ladies at the yarn store. Because it is so big and the aisles are wider, people don't feel as crammed in there as they do in the other grocery stores. And I've had some pleasant encounters in there too, whereas people in the Smith's have been more combative and stressed. It's probably the spacial that alleviates a lot of that stress. Western Americans don't like to be fenced in, literally or figuratively. Even so, my Walmart has become a lot more crowded lately with people who seem to be refugees. I don't know who they are, but they're mostly from California and a tad pricklier.