# Walmart, Red Man and the cost of convenience



## David K. Thomasson (Jun 7, 2014)

A by-line column I wrote during my journalism days (the Alabama phase).


Walmart, Red Man and the cost of convenience

I got into an interesting hassle the other day over the price of chewing tobacco. Let me bring you in by the scenic route.

About the time I was moving to South Alabama from New England two summers ago, Walmart was bumping into some of the granite attitudes common in that corner of America. Sam Walton’s company was looking to put up a SuperCenter outside a small Massachusetts town.

But the local Yanks weren’t having it. They liked their little community stores just fine, thank you. If someone needed motor oil, mushroom soup and a perm all on the same day, well, three stops were no bother. They were a chance to visit with townfolk — and visitin’ is one of the constituents of community that these people were not willing to swap for “progress.” So they went to their town meeting, set their jaw, and told Walmart to roll up its blueprints and get along down the road. And Walmart got.

Many times since Walmart built a SuperCenter in Daphne, I’ve thought of those stubborn New Englanders and the trade-off they resisted. No such resistance here. Baldwin County is in the throes of turbocharged yuppification. It is a sprawling, crawling monument to the brand of “progress” that Walmart thrives on and that those Yanks wanted no part of.

I’m getting so I don’t want any part of it either. I grew up in a rural Virginia community called Boonsboro, just north of Lynchburg. Mitchell’s Store was where we hung out as high school kids, sitting around on milk crates, slurping pop and shooting the breeze. But more was going on at Mitchell’s Store than I realized then. Subtle forces were at work building character and community.

All of us boys cussed, of course, but not around the store. Mrs. Mitchell saw to that, and it taught us to develop a sense of the appropriate place for it. To this day I bristle when I hear kids foul-mouthing in public. It isn’t the cussing that irritates me; it’s their utter lack of restraint and sense of place.

The Mitchell boys, Mike and Pat Jr., went to school with us and worked in the store, so we got the continuing lesson of a family running a business. And when an old-timer came in, you got up and gave him your milk crate. We didn’t think of it as acquiring respect for our elders; it was just something you did at Mitchell’s.

Mrs. Mitchell let us high school boys run a tab for our pop, nabs and gasoline. But she would get after us if we let it run too high. It was a continuing lesson in fiscal responsibility, though we didn’t think of it that way.

The shift from Mitchell’s Store to the Daphne SuperCenter is of a magnitude to inspire Jules Verne. The SuperCenter building is large enough to have its own weather systems.

But size is only the most obvious difference. I discovered a few others in the tobacco aisle that day. The familiar bags of Red Man bore bright yellow labels announcing a “Special limited offer: 25 cents off the regular retail price.” Red Man regularly sells for $1.46, so I tossed three bags into the carriage (for my grandmother). When the cashier scanned them, they rang up $1.44 apiece. I politely pointed out that the “Special limited offer” would make the sale price $1.21.

The cashier was suddenly a doe staring into the oncoming headlights. Nothing in her training had prepared her for this, so she smacked a button that set a lighted number above her register to blinking.

Soon, several blue-smocked Walmartians converged on the scene, and I began to understand how a virus feels when the white corpuscles close in. They scowled at the Red Man, scowled at me, and ruled that the 25 cents had already been deducted in the computer. Then they drifted away, perhaps in search of another infection to neutralize.

It was only a matter of 75 cents. Should I bother? Yes, I thought, do it for Granny. So I patiently explained that the regular price of Red Man was $1.46; I had been paying it every week for months, so on this point I was on solid ground.

The cashier stared into the headlights again and smacked the button. Hattie Mitchell didn’t have a blinking light. Any problem at her register was solved by her, and I mean right now, mister.

Another Walmartian soon arrived and made her superior authority known by screeching at a volume that could be heard for five or six aisles in either direction. Dozens of heads swiveled and stared as she delivered a lecture on Walmart’s pricing policy.

The regular price, she shrieked, is not what one regularly pays at Walmart, but rather what one would regularly pay if one shopped up the road at Delchamps Supermarket. I silently mused that a store big enough to have its own weather is big enough to publish its own dictionary, according to which “regular” doesn’t mean _regular._

The Superior Authority would further have me (and 30 or 40 other customers) understand that Red Man costs $1.78 at Delchamps and that Walmart routinely (regularly?) knocks off 25 cents in its computer. I silently mused that a store big enough to have its own language could develop its own system of arithmetic — Walmath — according to which $1.78 minus 25 cents equals $1.44.

I considered mentioning that this offer was “special” and “limited,” which suggests that something other than routine pricing was called for. But this would only invite more terminology from Walspeak, so I merely stood my ground, like a wooden Red Man.

Driving home, I searched for lessons. One is that for all the advantages and convenience of giant enterprises like the SuperCenter, we pay the price of depersonalization.

At Mitchell’s, no policy or procedure ever displaced the recognition of persons. If your tab ran too high and Mrs. Mitchell got on your case, it wasn't the legalistic hounding of a creditor but the firm guidance of a parent-figure. Maybe that’s why we called her “Ma Mitchell.”

Mitchell’s Store was , and still is, a business that helped sustain community. Giants like Walmart SuperCenters are businesses that displace community. Their massive, tiered structure and intricate policies act as screens between proprietor and customer, person and person. The shrieking manager I encountered was nothing but a surrogate for the company computer, a parrot taught to recite corporate policy.

I got my 75 cents, but I didn't get any satisfaction. All things considered, I wonder whether we’d be better off if Baldwin Countians had possessed the insight of those flinty New Englanders who told Walmart to roll up its blueprints and get along down the road.


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## T.S.Bowman (Jun 11, 2014)

"Walmartians". I LOVE that term. LOL

I, myself, grew up in a town of fewer than 2000 people. There was no Wal Mart when I was growing up there. There was the local grocery store on the edge of town (which is still there), a Western Auto and a pharmacy (both gone now) and a big ole shoe store called Norman's right in the middle of "downtown". There were also the requisite taverns, a barbershop, a couple of restaurants and the public library. I can remember the smells of the old hardware store and Clayte's Ice Cream Shop.

I never thought twice about it until I moved to a medium sized city. The town where I grew up was one of those "everyone knows everyone" kind of places. Once I got to the city, I realized that you were lucky if you knew the person who lived next door. 

"Progress" is only progress if it benefits us a humans. If it only benefits us as consumers, which s what Wal Mart considers progress, then it's detrimental to the area in which it occurs.

This was a great story that brought back a lot of fond memories for me. 

Thank you.


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## Blade (Jun 11, 2014)

I enjoyed that very much. My favourite part:



> Mitchell’s Store was , and still is, a business that helped sustain community. Giants like Walmart SuperCenters are businesses that displace community. Their massive, tiered structure and intricate policies act as screens between proprietor and customer, person and person. The shrieking manager I encountered was nothing but a surrogate for the company computer, a parrot taught to recite corporate policy.



I grew up in a village of about 1,000 people that had two hardware stores but certainly not a Walmart. They may give you better prices and selection but little else. We have a couple of stores locally but I never shop at them just to avoid the mental discomfort of being plugged into their system.


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## David K. Thomasson (Jun 11, 2014)

Thanks for the comments. That column was written in 1996. I must confess, however, that I am a frequent shopper at Walmart and love the convenience of having everything I need under one roof -- not to mention the low prices.


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## apple (Jun 11, 2014)

I very much enjoy your interesting little stories and thoughts on the"progress" in our world, minds and hearts.  You reveal so many sad truths in a warm and homey way, and that for me makes it fun to read.  The nostalgia comes through without forcing the idea that the "old ways" are better. ( some are, lol)  It really is a pleasure to read your work, David, whether old stuff or new


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## T.S.Bowman (Jun 11, 2014)

I shop there as well. Mostly for the same reasons.

However, my girlfriend and I will try, if at all possible, to support smaller stores. Well look at the price of an item in one of the 'mom and pop' type places and, if they aren't too far off the Wal Mart price (surprisingly, they are usually relatively close) we'll not bother with the big box place.


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## Ethan (Jun 11, 2014)

Great stuff, this should be serialised in a newspaper, I love your irreverant slant on all thing progressive, this is a genuine, one hundred percenter. Well done, and thanks for brightening my day!


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## Mudgeon Ramblings (Jun 15, 2014)

Good writing but I happen to like Walmart-


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## Bolus_of_Doom (Jun 24, 2014)

What you were familiar with in your youth is your lifelong standard of bigness. I still have misplaced nostalgia for a 70's-era shopping center in my small home town  that drew blood away from the town's core near the railroad tracks. What I didn't know until recently is that the plaza was anchored by Kroger, a national chain. I do remember  the ribbed rubber mat that magically opened the door to narrow aisles  floored with grimy vinyl tile. I used to return six-packs of glass coke  bottles for the deposit and pasted S&H Green Stamps into a booklet.

Further down the plaza, I drank cherry cokes on a chrome-rimmed stool at the  Rexall. I chewed Dubble Bubble chiclets from a gum machine in a locally-owned clothing store while the salesman pushed down on my big  toe to size my Buster Browns. I trod down a sticky slope at the local cinema to watch Star Wars  fourteen times, the picture framed on both sides by heads in the next  row.

Eventually they were all destroyed by businesses further out on the bypass with  better inventory or lower prices or stadium seating. Funny that some of my faded  childhood fixtures were once rapacious upstarts.

Someday, we'll explain  to our grandchildren that we actually DROVE to  WalMart to buy stuff, until their billions of commercial square feet  became a mere showroom for Amazon's cloud of drones.


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