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Our supercenter dilemma: low prices or high ideals?

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published December 15, 2005

I am standing beneath two signs. The one on the left says, from top to bottom:

Men's/Apparel/Intimate Apparel/Girls' Apparel/Home Fashions

And the one on the right:

Bread Rolls Buns/Frozen Waffles/Frozen Fruit/Pie Shells/Whipped Toppings/Juice & Concentrate

I have arrived at this juncture by way of a great circle, having been greeted at the main entrance and then having turned right at the first signpost (Groceries/Jewelry/ Pharmacy/ Pets/Lawn & Garden).

I wandered through Pharmacy and Toys, out to Lawn & Garden, through Sporting Goods (admiring an enormous freezer full of bait), then down an aisle with center displays of deep fryers, roasters, dishes and other specials.

Hardware/Housewares/Auto Care/Sporting Goods/Home Entertainment

An entire arts and crafts store! Racks of red lingerie! Televisions and stereos, computers and accessories, cameras.

Employees hustle past wearing blue vests and shirts with lettering on the back: How May I Help You? Now I stand uncertainly between apparel and 14 supermarket aisles of full-scale carbohydrate glory.

I seek the perimeter of the store, only to arrive at . . . a mall: the Smart Style Family Salon, Vision Center, Portrait Studio, Money Center, Royal Nails and a store selling "personal mobility vehicles." Next is a McDonald's.

This is ground zero for 70 percent of our gross domestic product, consumer spending.

This is a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Do not mistake this for sneering. It is beautiful. I am drunk with the potential of it; you can buy anything here. Why not table tennis? Why not the beginner's electric guitar for $98, or the drum set? This is Las Vegas, except better, because you get to walk out with stuff in exchange for your money.

I stumble outside into the natural light of the fading afternoon, woozy. Down the street there is a Kmart. Its lot is mostly empty.

The Kmart is clean and respectable, for sure, and it is easy to move among its aisles. There is most of the stuff that there is in Wal-Mart, except less of it.

Martha Stewart - God bless her! - is everywhere, offering dishcloths and housewares, bedding and kitchen implements. In my foggy customer's mind, I am grateful for her for sticking with Kmart even in times of trouble, both hers and its.

Only two checkout lines are open at Kmart, narrow, old-fashioned chutes unlike the open spaces of the checkouts at Wal-Mart or even Target, where at least psychologically, one feels free, a shopper with options.

How long will my Kmart last?

First there was Sears and its catalog ("Sears Has Everything") and then Kmart. Kmart replaced Sears as the store for Middle America, only to give way to the mall, which gave way to newcomers like Target. At first yuppies were ashamed to shop at Target and mocked themselves by pronouncing it "Tar-jay." Now, in the hierarchy of shopping, Target is practically upscale.

There is a Wal-Mart backlash under way, but it is not a mainstream backlash. There is a certain intellectual blaming of Wal-Mart for low wages and benefits, and for the trade deficit with China. We make unflattering movies; we protest the arrival of new stores; we feel validated by bad news.

Did you see the story about a local Wal-Mart calling deputies on an African-American businessman trying to use his own company's check? Outrageous, of course. But the fact it was a Wal-Mart gave the story extra oomph.

Despite all this, my Wal-Mart bustled with white and African-American shoppers alike, none of them offended enough to stay away. No doubt, too, some of them were neighbors who had protested the store's arrival. Across the country and in our own back yard, we fight the same fight again and again, in Tarpon Springs, on Gandy Boulevard, in annexation fights in Citrus County.

Then we shop there. Our society can have higher wages, universal health insurance, protectionist trade policies and not-in-my-back-yard zoning. Or we can have the lowest possible prices on consumer junk. We have made our choice.

[Last modified December 15, 2005, 14:15:20]