Patience and tolerance are very closely related concepts, however, are very different in practice. Patience is more of a visceral reaction; it takes cognitive manipulation to retain it. Tolerance, however, is more of an attitude. For example, I am tolerant of several different kinds of people unlike myself in color, practice, or beliefs, however, I have no patience behind any of them on an exit ramp. Look elsewhere for an even-temper on the road, 'cause I have a short fuse.
My whole point of bringing this up is to initiate a certain cognizance that there is an appropriate time to exercise tolerance and patience and not to let your emotions get the best of you, especially at Wal-mart. The people that regularly shop at Wal-mart are fucking crazy, wallowing around in a velcroed-knockoff version of small town self-fulfilling pity that seems to only get worse when they're shown a glimpse of better life. Just for a visit.
I always thought it was integral to the marketing strategy of Wal-mart to build a giant superstore in the middle of a field in Smalltown, USA, strategically placing it within a certain distance of X population + Y distance from a distribution center and Z number of minority workers. I was fine with that. For instance, there upon 2 feet of raised ground in Chillicothe's flood plain -- quite possibly the worst spot ever to build anything-- sits the giant discount Mecca like a giant thrift magnet. Small town, small town wages, small town Wal-mart. Seems to have a nice balance to it.
Somewhere along the way, the mega-success of Wal-mart wasn't enough. So now, greedy corporate evolution has led way to the stores popping up in some of the best neighborhoods in the state. Dublin, Ohio has a Wal-mart. Dublin's average home price was $350,000 last year. You can bet that several of the Better Homes and Gardens wives are shopping there, but they sure as hell aren't happy about it being there. Wal-mart is like the dragnet of tuna fishing. You're going to snag a lot of tuna, but you're probably also going to get about just as much trash and old boots when you take a look at your catch.
Living in Northwest Columbus is optimal, mostly because you can get practically anywhere within 15 minutes. I live in a comfy area, sandwiched between two of the best zip codes in the city, one of which I share. The two nearest streets are hotbeds of retail activity and within 5 minutes I can be at Micro Center, an organic foods market, McDonald's, develop photos in an hour, or pick up medication at at least 4 locations. Because those two streets are under the umbrella of generic City of Columbus zoning, nobody made a huge deal when an old Big Bear location was knocked down and then Phoenixed as a Wal-mart. In fact, living around the corner from it I didn't even know what was going on until I saw the newspaper last week. Instead of being contained in the clear, thin plastic bag per usual, it was in an opaque white bag bearing the advertisement of the Wal-Mart Grand Opening on 'Bethal Road' (the correct spelling of the road is actually 'Bethel').
My boyfriend and I went in Saturday to check it out. Actually, we were goinggeocaching and we needed a couple little things, so we went in quickly to grab some lottery tickets. We didn't find any, but we did find a deer hunting arcade game with two rifles, a significant dose of apathy, and two mulleted idiots behind the customer service counter. It was almost as if they had a Wal-mart Idol at every town in rural Ohio that no one had ever heard of and recruited them to work there. We left after five minutes, and a general sense that our comfy area of central Ohio was about to get a little less comfortable.
One day later, there was a murder-suicide in the parking lot. A man shot his wife, then himself in front of their two teenaged daughters right there in view of anyone who may have been returning to their cars at about the same time. At least he did it Wal-mart style and shot himself afterward, instead of dragging anyone else into it. Plus, he committed the crime at about 9:21, when any respectable individuals would've been inside watching Family Guy; another bonus. I have lived in Columbus all of my adult life and the worst crime that I can even think of on that corner was perhaps a car getting broken into. Slap a Wal-mart next to a dollar movie theater and some guy can't even wait a week for it to be open to kill his wife. Isolated incident, maybe. But really, fuck Wal-mart.
The real horror: the teenaged girls who just lost their parents were home schooled. When an aunt of the girls was asked by police to come and pick them up with no explanation, she offered this gem:
"We all had a feeling that something was coming."
Oh. Well then.
My point is this: The only sanity that you can really be assured of is your own. How many of these human time bombs are in front of us in line, working at the check out, or overhearing our petty conversations? How can we be so sure that the guy sitting next to us at the movie theater can't stay still because he has restless leg syndrome and not because he has a gun poking him in the ass? I'm not paranoid; I am just realistic. People are fucking crazy.
Next time, go to Target.
