COLUMN:Size matters
Except for our cell phones and computer chips, I get the feeling everything is getting a little too big. What was once medium is now large and what was large is family size which is funny because family size is about the only thing that is getting smaller. Three thousand square-foot homes with two car garages are starter homes, SUVs are starting to resemble semi trailers and Wal-Marts are bigger than the Catholic church.
We have a fickle relationship with size. Big is good if you are a sumo wrestler, an NBA center or Mt. Everest. In business, though, it is not good when you grow from a cute puppy to a gargantuan glutinous hell hound in too short a time.
I know the “Mom and Pop” store has been gone longer than good manners, but I’d settle for just about any store chain not bent on world assimilation and domination. And, just let me point out Old Navy is neither old nor Navy. If you want to really get me nostalgic I can tell you way back in the 1970s in Columbia, Mo., Wal-Mart used to be a quaint, tiny junky store. It was sort of cute in its good-old-boy sort of way. Then Wal-Mart came to Logan. I can remember when management said it wasn’t going to be open on Sundays in keeping with local community standards. I can remember when it said it wasn’t going to sell anything other than American-made products.
What happened? Somewhere along the line the puppy stumbled onto the steroid dog chow.
Wal-Mart recently announced its new mega-ultra extreme mart will be accessible by all major airlines, be open 26 hours a day and offer prices at 100 percent off discount warehouse wholesale. This week’s special is a life-sized replica of the Great Wall of China made out of cans of Spam. Parents are cautioned not to let their children stray too close to the molten Cheese Whiz river without a life jacket that will be featured in the dairy products section of the store, but feel free to bring your ice skates and sleds to the new frozen foods section.
I think it is quite possible most of the world – including the current Wal-Mart stores – could fit inside the next generation of Wal-Mart stores. I think we are going to wake up one day and there is going to be nothing but Wal-Mart and fast food chains with a few Caldwell Banker Realtors around to sell everything that is left.
I have this recurring nightmare much like the movie The Matrix – where the world turns out to be just a computer-generated game – upon death, I find myself walking through a long corridor toward the light. At the end, I see a friendly looking white-haired old man at the end of the corridor. As I get closer, I can see he is wearing a blue vest with a name tag which reads “Hi, my name is God.” He smiles and says, “Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.”