Why hate?

Why does Wal-Mart hate pretty trees, green grass and wildlife? How do I know that they hate it? Because every time there is a pretty forest, they come in and tear down all the tress and put up a new building!

See...there is a road that I drive every day to work. It is kind of the long way around, but I like the peace and quiet that it brings. There isn’t a lot of traffic. There are no stoplights to sit and wait at. There are fields and a lot of woods, with a bunch of trees and I assume with a lot of wildlife in them. The road winds out by the local airport, the state veterans’ cemetery, a relatively new family neighborhood and a retirement ‘village’ located next to a local church, which also has a private elementary school at the church. Well almost directly across from the retirement housing and just down from the entrance to the neighborhood is where Wal-Mart thought it would be a great idea to build a new store!

Now granted, less than a mile down the road and around the corner sits a Wal-Mart Neighborhood market. Basically it is a grocery store. They only sell the items that a grocery store would carry, a few necessity items in hardware, a photo place, a deli, a pharmacy. It’s a pretty good little store. Its not too busy and getting in and out of the parking lot is pretty easy and convient. But that is not enough for them. They wanted a BIGGER store. I hate it when they build a store and then vacate it. I just feel like the trees and nature that was destroyed in order to build that building was just wasted.

I hate Wal-Mart with a passion anyway. This only gives me more reason to hate them. Oh…did I mention that hubby used to work for them? Oh yeah. We served seven years in hell on earth. No, not really, it wasn’t that bad when he worked for them. He worked for them when Sam was still alive. We did our 'tour of duty' with the company and got moved from state to state every two years. Hubby had planned on making WM a lifelong career, until he got fed up with the corporate b.s. that got started right after Sam died.

Oh and I also have a theory in which I blame Wal-Mart for the decline of the American family. Wanna hear it? Ok….hear goes….

I can remember a loonnngggg time ago, when I was a little girl. Yeah, contrary to what my daughter believes, I used to be YOUNG! Anyway, there were “blue laws.” On Sundays, there were certain things you couldn’t buy at the grocery stores. Some stores went as far as to rope those areas off . But really, there weren’t hardly any stores open anyway. The only stores that were open were a few big grocery stores, but mainly it was just gas stations, or convienent stores as we called them. Sundays were actually a day of rest, for people to go to church and spend time with their families. Wow, what a new concept now days, spending time with your family.

So when did all this change? When Walmart came to town. Walmart was the first major business to be open on Sundays. Ok, so great, there was some place to go now on Sundays after church to waste some time or to go get something in case of an emergency. But now that Walmart was open on Sundays, soon every one else was too. So that meant that more and more people who used to not work on Sundays, were now needed to do so. No church. No family time.

And who was the first to stay open 24 hours?

Walmart.

So that means now not only do we have people who are needed to work 7 days a week, we need people to work 24 hours a day. Granted, that provided more jobs and thus more money for the economy, but I also see it as a way that pulled the American family apart a little. Now there are even daycares that stay open til midnight. And granted, there are some families that need these type of 24 hour jobs so that one parent might be able to stay at home with the kids, while the other one works and then vice versa. Like I said, it is just my theory and therefore my opinion.