Do you get as many of those "People of Wal*Mart" e-mails as I do? These are the ones that you hate laugh at, because it is not nice or proper to be judgmental of others, but you can't help it becuase of the bombast?
Last year for work camp, we went to West Virginia. This year, Tennessee. So in two years, I have been in three Wal*Marts... Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Based on what the internet tells me, these visits should have been absolute comic gold at its best.
And yet, reality is not so funny. I don't shop at Wal*Mart because I don't like the general consumer decline of the U.S. and I think large companies have a responsibility to help out the country they are based in. In this case, the profits that Wal*Mart makes, keeps, hides and withholds from its employees all while forcing more manufacturing and jobs to other parts of the world and foresaking quality for the sake of a few cents per unit make it in my book a nearly criminal enterprise. But that is another rant for another time.
We go to Wal*Mart on these trips because the trips are predominately in the south and that is where Wal*Mart is king. I can say with all seriousness that the three stores I have been to in two years in the deep south have been the nicest, cleanest, most well stocked, genteel locations of the retail behemoth I have ever been to. And they were all sadly lacking in people dressed as chickens or women who were way too big for their clothes or the men who wished they were women who were too big for their clothes.
There have been no shoeless hick families, no crying babies, nobody all that different from me at all. In fact, I have seen black and white shopping and talking together. I have been asked if I need help ample times. I even found a John Denver CD for $5.00 last year... the one time in 10 years I actually spent even a dollar at the evil empire, Wal*Mart.
I think I smell a rat with the People of Wal*Mart e-mails. In short, it is sort of like faking a bigfoot photo... you do it for attention. I saw bigfoot once, (for real... it's a great story I'll share sometime), but I have never seen a chicken man or a trans-gender cowgirl in a pink tutu at Wal*Mart.
Oh well, there's always next year.
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For the first time in my whole life since I can remember, I did not one time eat at a McDonald's restaurant on my five state trek to work camp and back. I thought this was, until last week, a statistical impossibility.
I did get two cups of coffee from the clown prince of fast food, but never did I eat.
So, good for me, right? Well, maybe not so quick. I did have Burger King twice (both times only chicken tenders), once at Taco Bell, (where I have to remember to ask them not to put half of my order in the bag since I can't seem to remember I can't eat that much anymore) and Wendy's once as a treat for my work crew.
I talked to a student who indicated to me he won't eat at McDonald's becuase he saw Supersize Me and it ruined it for him. I questioned his logic and he admitted that even though he knew discretion and moderation were keys to so much in life, he said it just doesn't taste good to him anymore.
Fair enough, but I wanted to trap him. What of the other fast food giants. Burger King he also eschews, but he is O.k. with Wendy's and Taco Bell... we ate together at Culvers on the first day and he seemed good enough with that to have a burger, fries a drink and a frozen custard... hardly a low calorie health meal.
Why? Because Wendy's markets that they have made improvements to their menu to make it healthier. These marketing techniques include the fresh "sea salt" fries and some alternatives for the kids. But Wendy's still sells the ridiculous yet beguiling "Triple", a 3/4 pound feast of cholesterol, sodium and juicy death on a bun. This also fails to mention BK has apple fries now and a lot of chicken on their menu. Plus, you can readily cut any high fat condiment off because of their "have it your way" mentality. This has escaped the notice of my otherwise observant pupil.
Taco Bell, he reasoned, at least disclosed what was in their food, even if that disclosure admits that the beef is 80% beef and 20% "other". But, McDonald's has not overtly followed suit and so he held a deep (though I believe unfounded) belief that McDonald's did not use much beef at all and that it was mostly soy fillers in the clown's burgers.
So basically, this poor kid has been boondoggled into thinking that McDonald's and Burger King are evil, but that Taco Bell and Wendy's are perfectly fine. Taken empirically, McDonald's has more lower calorie offerings than any of the other makers, but Supersze Me was so affective that they can't seem to get that point across. Marketing departments around the U.S. take note... yes, people are buying the shit you are shoveling.
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