There’s nothing I find scarier than a Walmart store. Oh, wait…let me rephrase that…there’s nothing I find scarier than a Walmart shopper. I’m far from perfect as I have shopped at the place a few times in my life and sadly, most of that shopping took place at the Walmart-owned Asda when I was living overseas. Hey, the dollar is worth shit. I lost two dollars for every pound I spent, or something like that.
Anyway, Walmart is like gathering all the people from the DMV and mixing it with a Kentucky family reunion and forgetting to dress them in front of a mirror, or something like that. Walmart and its subsidiaries employ over 2 million people at 8,400 stores worldwide. And they care so much about those 2 million workers that they just cut some health care coverage for them. Way to be greedy, Walmart.
For a corporation as powerful as Walmart it’s not surprising there is a special place devoted to their evilness. It all started in the town of Bentonville, Arkansas back in 1962, where the Visitors Center has a museum tucked inside the original store.
The old five and dime storefront has pieces of Walmart history of course, but the most important part of the collection is a room dedicated to Sam Walton and his Narcissism. First, there is an 8-minute video about Sam’s life and his role in helping “people save money and live better”. Sure…right. Once inside the exhibit gallery, one can see items from his everyday life. This includes bags of Ol’ Roy Dog Food (Walmart’s own brand of dog food), Walmart Moon Pies, Helen Walton’s wedding dress (I’m sure that didn’t cost 16 billion dollars), Sam’s 1979 red Ford F150 custom pickup with 65,627 miles on the odometer (a very important statistic for Walmart-philes) and his general headquarters office, which was moved and reassembled here in its entirety. This picture is probably my favorite part of his office. I won’t accuse Sam Walton of being an evil dictator, but I do find his stores and customers to be the closest one can get to the fiery pits of hell.
