Those who know me well are aware that I have a distaste for a certain department store (which I will refuse to name directly, fearing that the greedy owners might sit in their posh offices in Bentonville, Arkansas, and decide to sue me for libel). So while many of my contemporaries are blogging about their latest vacation or purchase of a new house, a trip to "Sprawl-mart" is almost as rare in my life as the events found on other blogs. Although I live within walking distance of this evil empire, I can count on one hand the number of times I have been in that building.

Suffice it to say, my most recent visit was a rare occasion, and only came about through a lot of grumbling and a series of unfortunate events. The compelling factor: the power was out in my neighborhood. No computers, no TV, no power tools, and certainly no air conditioning. When Colleen invited me to accompany her to Sprawl-mart, I was quite tempted to politely decline and spend the evening in my backyard hammock, reading a good book by the light of the fading sun and the rising full moon; however, like far too many times in my life, I passed on my gut instinct and made a decision I would soon regret.

We had actually paid a visit earlier that evening to Target, looking for shoes in anticipation of Ben's upcoming birthday. Unfortunately, we were not able to find precisely what Colleen was looking for. At one point, she went to the customer service desk for assistance while Ben, Lydia, and I went exploring. What we found were those big, cheap, plastic bouncy "marble" balls. You know, the kind that are about two feet wide, and you can bounce them off somebody's head without drawing any blood. They cost $2.59. I neglected to buy one, and ended up regretting my decision when we were home in our yard. Hence, some of the motivation to accompany Colleen to Sprawl-mart.

Upon arriving at the store, we parked in Lot M, Row 493, wondering whether it wouldn't have been closer and faster to just walk there from our house. It certainly would have been safer. My mind was flooded with the several newspaper articles I have read about crimes committed in Sprawl-mart parking lots: robberies, muggings, assaults, even once where one lady grabbed another lady's cart full of groceries and made a mad dash. I tried not to dwell too hard on this idea, or the fact that the average Sprawl-mart store has 269 police incidents per year (that's over five per week, people).

Upon safely entering the store, we headed straight for the shoe area. Colleen examined a number of shoes here, but was unable to find exactly what she wanted in Ben's size. We began to weigh and consider different options. At one point, she picked up a pair of tennis shoes and asked me, "do you think these would still fit him through the winter?" My response, of course, was that this was a question of irrelevance, as any shoes we might purchase at this establishment would probably fall apart before winter anyhow.

After finally settling on a pair of shoes, we headed toward the garden center to see if they might be having any seasonal clearance sales yet. The walk to the garden center took us past the electronics department, sporting goods, automotive, etc. Also, we apparently passed through some warp in the time-space continuum, and temporarily found ourselves on some planet with funky looking life forms. I had long ago forgotten what type of population you might find in a Sprawl-mart store after 8:00 pm. I saw a manner of bodily ornamentation, facial expressions, and chaotic meanderings as I don't believe it possible to experience elsewhere. There was but one word on my mind: mutants. Let me put it this way: I have spent the last two years employed in a position that requires frequent trips to the downtown homeless shelter and surrounding area, and I've never seen anything like what I saw in that Sprawl-mart electronics section. It was way more frightening to be there, than to try to talk to the guy in the aluminum foil hat. Let me put it another way: if I had to choose between walking through Pioneer Park at night, and walking through the Sprawl-mart electronics section--well, not only would I find Pioneer Park to be less frightening, but it smells better, too.

As we ventured safely past the electronics area--avoiding eye contact with ANYBODY along the way--we found what I had been looking for: humongous marble balls. A whole big tower of them, sure to catch the eye of any child passing by. As we neared, Colleen noted "they are cheaper here than at Target," much to the satisfaction of the Sprawl-mart marketing executives who were likely watching us on hidden camera. Of course, they didn't catch the satire in her voice, as the difference was a mere nine cents.

We found a ball which seemed satisfactory in most senses: it was large, it was colorful, it bounced nicely off of Lydia's head. But there was just something wrong with it. It wasn't any different from the rest of them, but there was something about the way it was inflated, the noticeable seam that held two sides together, the sound it made when it bounced. This was obviously not a quality marble ball. But, again, it was exactly the same as the rest of them, so we threw it in our cart and went on our merry way, hurrying to distance ourselves from the wary eyes of the mutants.

After a brief, fruitless stop in the garden center, we proceeded to the check-out area, and we were met with the dreaded site: lines, lines, lines. I'm not even sure how far back most of the lines stretched; well beyond my field of view. We thought we would be smart and go to the self check-out area. Upon arriving there, we found that there were signs proclaiming this the "Speedy Checkout" zone. This part of our adventure lasted about twenty minutes.

We arrived back in our neighborhood at about 9:45 pm and found that the electricity had been restored to the houses we were driving past. Colleen dropped me off at the church for my typical Wednesday basketball night. Apparently, the lights came back about 9:40, so naturally we had enough guys gathered to play ball by 9:47.

Colleen took the kids home, unloaded the ball, and....BOOM! No sooner did that thing touch the ground than it burst, making a sound loud enough to startle Colleen and frighten both kids. You can probably imagine, once their hearts returned to normal rhythm, what the reaction from Ben and Lydia was:





In the latter picture, Ben has just informed Lydia that the ball is dead. There is nothing the doctors can do...on the flip side, at least they've decided they have new hats:



I did, of course, return the ball for a refund. I gladly consented to the time and transportation costs necessary to get my $2.50 back. I held tight to that $2.50 as I ventured through the parking lot back to my car.

In short, it could be said that a trip to Sprawl-mart is commensurate with:

Low prices, low quality
Always scary parking lots, always
Crime
Always screaming children all over the store, always
Mutants

Always long checkout lines, always
Not being able to find helpful customer service people anywhere in the store
Always stuff that you always know is always going to break or wear out way too fast--always
A drain on the local economy, and an increase in public assistance payments
Always high costs, always