I just returned from a little trip to Ukraine (that's in Eurasia, dropouts!), and I'm a'yearnin' for a little Americana. There is nothing--and I mean nothing--more American than snarfing down a Big Mac Extra Value Meal while trying on saggy sweatshop jeans at a Super Wal-Mart in the sticks. Yee-haw!
What am I saying? This, friends: I'm temporarily changing the parameters of this experiment. From today until December 25th (that's Christmas, heathens!), I'm going to shop exclusively at chain stores: no independents allowed.
Wacky!
Will it be easier? Or will it be tougher?
I guess I'll find out.
Hohoho!
P.S. I don't buy Christmas gifts (because I'm a heathen, dropouts!), so my month's contribution to the bottom lines of global corporations shouldn't be too significant.
An excuse: I was short on time and I needed to buy several gifts and other items before my trip to Ukraine. I knew it would be faster and cheaper to get these things at Target than to shop independent.
A chastening: I got TOTALLY busted by a friend of mine, who spotted me with a basket full of merchandise as I was getting on the escalator.
This afternoon I went to the Mall of America in pursuit of souvenirs to bring my friends in Ukraine. At Minnesota-Ah, which I believe is a single-location store, I spent so much money on Chinese-made Minnesota-themed goods that the cashier gave me a free notepad. Umm, score?
The Mall of America is one of the most garish monuments to consumerism in this country, and even before I got all persnickety about chain stores I hated going there. What I hate most about The Mall is not its insane size or its fluorescent lighting or the crush of out-of-town rubberneckers or even the nonstop shouts of terror and joy that originate at the indooor rollercoaster and echo throughout all 2.5 million square feet of Megamall. No, what I hate most about the Mall of America is how I feel when I'm there: greedy and obsessed. The desire to spend money I don't have on shit I couldn't possibly need is almost painful. Things I never knew I wanted become, suddenly, almost impossible to live without. Will buying this cable-knit sweater cape make me a happier and hipper person? YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT IT WILL.
One of my favorite books is White Noise by Don DeLillo. When I'm at The Mall, or any mall, this excerpt always comes to mind:
When times are bad, people feel compelled to overeat. Blacksmith is full of obese adults and children, baggy-pantsed, short-legged, waddling. They struggle to emerge from compact cars; they don sweatsuits and run in families across the landscape; they walk down the street with food in their faces; they eat in stores, cars, parking lots, on bus lines and movie lines, under the stately trees. Only the elderly seem exempt from the fever of eating. If they are sometimes absent from their own words, they are also slim and healthy-looking, the women carefully groomed, the men purposeful and well dressed, selecting shopping cars from the line outside the supermarket.
The fever of eating, the fever of consuming. Whatever you call it, it's a sickness.
I attended a meeting of my neighborhood organization's development committee last night. We discussed, among other things, the possibility of the neighborhood organization opening a coffee shop or other store in a vacant retail space at the corner of Franklin and Nicollet. Though the benefits of opening a shop are numerous, doing so would also be a big freaking hassle. No decisions were made, and the committee members are going to do some further research into the costs and risks. Another option would be to recruit an appropriate business into the space. Regardless of the outcome, it's great to live in a community that is so invested in making itself safer and more viable.
Just read an interesting article about our ambivalence toward Starbucks. If you insist on getting your coffee there, I implore you to try the ghetto latte. Work the system, people. Work it!
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