Llalan vs Sam Walton -or- All I Needed Were Some Light Bulbs

by Llalan

“Dear God.” I halted in front of an awe-inspiring display of six-foot-wide flat screen TVs. Ben was right behind me, showing his father’s Sam’s Club Card to the grinning octogenarian acting as bouncer for The Club. “Yeah, right?” laughed Ben, “Let’s go get you some light.”

I was in search of new bulbs for the bookstore’s overhead lights, and thought it was time to go green and buy some energy savers. We first went to Lowes, hoping to find them on discount in bulk. I slunk guiltily around the cavernous store, already feeling bad for not just going to the local hardware store. We found them, but Ben thought he could get a better price at Sam’s. When he asked why I was scowling so, I answered that I didn’t like supporting the Walton family. Actually I said “I think they’re terrible people,” which even surprised me a little.  “I’m just trying to help out the store, baby.” Said Ben, managing an expression that was both hurt and wise. “Fine.”

I felt mentally exhausted from this inner-debate I’d been waging for several days. On Friday I had hosted the author of Rust Belt Resistance, Perry Bush, for a talk and signing at the bookstore. His book is about a time in Lima, Ohio, when the workers of an oil refinery and the town’s citizens worked together to save the plant — essentially the little guy triumphed over the big bad one, BP. Except BP wasn’t all that bad, right? Because they were employing all those people to begin with. So can we support the workers if we don’t support big oil? The story is thick and multifaceted, as is the book, and so was the discussion Bush moderated Friday night. The crowd was a relatively diverse one: former GM employees, anti-fracking activists, plus a few students and writers (the most dangerous of them all).  Though it was a pretty liberal group, voices still rose in anger. A clean environment, a safe work place, jobs, local business, a global economy: it seems you just can’t have it all. How do you justify passing up $0.99 books on Amazon? I was manning the front counter through the entire event, so wasn’t able to add to the discussion. Or maybe that was an excuse to not contribute.

Then two days later I find myself, for the first time, rubber-necking my way through the king of bulk stores like a bumpkin in the big city. So. Much. Shit. I shut down; it felt wrong. I was in a warehouse packed to the rafters with so much stuff that people didn’t need, shouldn’t want. Frozen pizza, energy drinks, video games, patio sets, gold jewelry, diet pills,  cheese puffs, and so much more. Ben makes b-lines much like Billy in the comic Family Circus, and soon we found ourselves in the candy aisle. My teeth hurt looking at it all. But when Ben picked up a carton of Airhead Xtremes rainbow sour candy, I couldn’t say no; Who can say no to AirHead Xtremes?

It was harder to maintain my silent fury with an armload of neon sour candy. We found the light bulbs; they were moderately cheaper. So we took our stash up front to pay. A dour woman at the register shook her head like I should know better: “We don’t take Visa in The Club, but if you sign up for a Sam’s Discover card today you’ll save 20%.” This was strung together as one long frowny mumble, and for one quick moment I saw myself through her eyes: white Oxford cloth shirt, crossed arms, dark pout beneath my trendy eyeglasses. Without looking up at Ben, for fear I would say something snotty, I walked out of the sickeningly loud store.

We climbed into Ben’s SUV, drove the 200 yards to the Lowes parking lot, trudged into the first warehouse store, and bought the goddamned bulbs. There is no solution to this, no answer easy or otherwise. I like things neat, alphabetized by author, then title; this is messy. I’m not sure I’m even clear on what the question is. It is so much easier to have opinions when the issue seems black and white. At least it will be brighter in the bookstore.