Reply #12: That reminds me ...

[RoyGBiv]

My little home town got a Wal-Mart when I was about ten. It replaced a Gibson's, for which I have many fond memories of childhood. (The people there all knew you. You could get groceries at good prices and at least to me good quality. They had a toy *section* and games and bubble gum machines and let you hang out there without harassing you while waiting to get into the skating rink across the street ... I digress.) Anyway, I was disappointed when Gibson's left, but Wal-Mart almost made up for it. It was a small store by today's standards, but the customer service was still good, they actually had the re-fill components to my science kit so I could do more experiments, and it was the first store in town to carry a computer. I oogled over that thing for months.

One day, we got news they were moving into a bigger building. This was after Sam Walton had died, and that's when it all went to hell. I stopped shopping there for the most part, preferring TG&Y until it went under and the K-Mart. A few years after that they built a Super Wal-Mart, and I went in there a few times. Every time I did so I swore I'd never go back, and finally, I just didn't.

It wasn't a bad idea in the beginning, but the idea soured.