Speaking of Wal*Mart …

She grew up in that small Mississippi town and had rarely ventured beyond the city limits.  She was a very sweet young woman: pretty, respectful, and frighteningly naïve.

I mentioned Wal*Mart in passing, and her eyes brightened.

“Oh, you have Wal*Mart in Colorado, too?” she drawled.

“Um … yeah.  There are lots of Wal*Marts in Colorado.  They’re in every state.”

“Really?  I didn’t know that.”

“Yep.  Every state in the union.”

Her eyes widened and she shook her head slightly.  “Oh, we don’t talk much about the Union down here.”

Over one hundred forty years later, the war still rages.

Generations

The car idles as my stepson and I wait in line at the Walgreen’s drive-through.  A fancy SUV waits in line ahead of us.

“Look, it’s the Wal*Mart dude!” he says.

“Who?” I ask.

“You know, the Wal*Mart dude.  That yellow smiley face guy.  On that car’s antenna.”

I look up and see a faded yellow antenna ball smiling down at me, a 70s cultural icon, rendered in three dimensions and impaled on the antenna of a $70,000 gas guzzler.  In my stepson’s generation, the smiley face has been co-opted by the world’s largest retailer.

Have a nice day, indeed.