Wal-eek

You know the Kaaba -- that giant cube in Mecca that Muslims flock to en masse during the Hajj? Well, that's what the local Wal-Mart is to rednecks. They hear the clarion call of deep discounts and a lack of willingness to enforce any sort of "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" policy and come by the thousands to basically shamble zombie-like around the monolithic structure in a big circle over and over again until they either collapse from a cholesterol-induced heart attack or hunting season starts. The Wal-Mart in Sebring, Florida, where my parents have ill-advisedly chosen to live out their twilight years, is no exception. In fact, I'm willing to bet that it's worse than most.*

Chances are you've already seen the whole Wal-Mart aesthetic captured quite well on that "People of Wal-Mart" site (which is admittedly as depressing as it is hilarious). Well, here now, for the sake of anthropological posterity, is my little contribution: a few quick pictures I snapped during my expedition with Inara yesterday to gorge on ten dollar diapers.

The greeters at this particular store should seriously be wearing buttons that read "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here."


Traffic.


WALCART. Like NASCAR, only with fewer teeth.


Simple. Much like Palin herself.


Was Max Azria recently sentenced to community service for some crime I don't know about? Ladies, you can toss out all those BCBG dresses now -- they're worthless. This made me laugh and cry at the same time.


Ladies and gentlemen, the most entertaining thing I came across during my mission to Wal-Mart, because it's so subtly surreal (in a place that on the whole is so unsubtly surreal). This is one of those automated DVD rental machines -- specifically the button you'd press if you wanted to rent Bruno. Now if you remember the movie, you know that it had nothing at all to do with pastoral settings or gorgeous sunrises. Interestingly, the Bruno button was the only one that didn't feature an image of the corresponding movie poster, and that's because Bruno was the only movie available from the machine whose poster featured an image of a half-naked gay guy. And since we know that homosexuality is an abomination against Jesus and therefore offensive to 99.9% of the patrons of Wal-Mart, something had to be substituted for the picture of Sacha Baron Cohen dressed like the Little Gay Dutch Boy. Guess an empty field and a sunrise was as good as anything. Go, God!

One thing that I unfortunately wasn't able to get a picture of was a little Hispanic girl who seemed to be just wandering around aimlessly. She happened to have a backpack strapped to her and the second Inara saw her, she shouted out -- I kid you not -- "Dora!" Yes, I corrected her -- but it still took me around five minutes to stop laughing.

*Texas not included.