I’m K-Mart Shopper

A rainy, overcast day and what to do?? Let’s go shopping at K-mart with naturalist Tom Stock. I grab one of the monstrous shopping carts and am determined to fill it up. I join the consumers already in the store. There are many women, over weight, not very attractive, with huge cardboard boxes that look like skyscrapers sticking out of their carts. These women have smiles on their faces like Herring Gulls or ducks (whom always smile). There is a men arguing with their wives in angry tones over what kind of shampoo they should buy. There are over a hundred choices, so I can understand how difficult this decision must be for this couple. I overhear another man saying to his wife “You need a coupon!” in an urgent voice. I spotted a man sitting in the patio section sitting on a lounge chair with strange, distant eyes.

I had come to buy a four pack of color film. That’s all I intended to buy. So how come my receipt says $64.19?? I passed the blue gene section and tossed in two pairs. I needed candles. I picked out two Martha Steward decorator candles. However, I didn’t intend to decorate with them. They are the decorations; they don’t help with the decorations. Another example of package labeling that may suggest to the buyer that if you buy “decorator” candles, you can decorate. I saw a back scrubber so I thought I needed that. I’ve gotten along without a back scrubber for 20 years. All of a sudden I needed a back scrubber. It wasn’t as hard as I thought to fill up my shopping cart but I still had quite a bit of room left.

I pushed along into the toy section in isles piled so high with toys that the light dimmed and everything came from China…plastic embedded plastic.

I saw many things to have and delighted in not having them. For example, there was a $10 12 cup Proctor Silax coffee maker that caught my eye. The fact there were four hundred of them enticed me. The abundance of this product sort of made me feel that I should buy one just to provide more shelf space. This is the way K-Mart works. They trick you into thinking abundance, an abundance of stuff to pack into your house to live the good life. I have a two cup coffee maker. So I passed on the 12 cup model.

As I entered the dressing room to try on the $15 geans. I met the woman in charge whose job was to make sure that I didn’t steal any clothing. She took a good look at me memorizing what clothes I was wearing. She unlocked the door and I entered a room with no chair, no hooks. I tried on both pairs and knew instantly by the fit around my waist that the pair of threadbare genes I had on would retire to the garlic garden.

This store is so huge that when I first entered and asked where I could find the film department, it took almost five minutes of speedy walking to go straight there! The huge expanse with stuff overflowing, like an advancing glacier, simply overwhelmed me and I felt uneasy right away. I felt as I was submerged in a large cardboard box.

I enjoyed tempting myself, looking at stuff, going up and down each isle, seeing if I could create needs that I didn’t really have. I did pick out two plastic table cloths for the next convocation at Synapse.

Opposite the checkout counter, I spied a plastic pool with plastic waterfall with plastic flowers floating on the water and 8 enormous cardboard boxes with “kits” that would instantly satisfy ones need for a pond and a waterfall in their backyard.

Once I exited the building, I could feel my lungs expand. Thank God I’m outdoors once again! K-Mart is stuff oriented. I, on the other hand, like to hug trees. I guess that makes me a tree hugger.

Tom Stock

June 6, 2003

Shopping series