I dig Wal-Mart. As much as people hate on Wal-Mart, I go for therapeutic reasons. I have been down in the dumps lately — work has been busy, money is tight, and I have spotted a few grays in my precious golden locks. But instead of going to a shrink to help me work out the kinks, I just jump in the car and go to my local Wal-Mart to make myself feel better. I cannot imagine what it costs for a session in some professional’s office to help you sort yourself out, but at Wal-Mart it’s free. (Well, it was $15.67 for the cashews, apple juice, Willie Nelson clearance priced T-Shirt, and pack of gum.) Once again, Wal-Mart has saved a consumer his hard-earned pocket change.

The minute you walk in, it’s invigorating. There’s nothing quite like venturing through the automated doors, having the pungent aroma of stale popcorn and hot dogs hit your nostrils, and being greeted by (aka grunted at by) some grizzly, half dead, World War II Vet. The second you walk in, the therapy begins! But the real healing doesn’t start until you see your fellow shoppers. And let me tell you, the people at the Audubon New Jersey Wal-Mart are some morose lookin’ folks. I seriously felt a million times better about myself after leaving and I will explain why. First and foremost, it’s not often that I am the best looking person in a building. But also, usually when I go, I wear what I consider my “slumming it” clothes which consist of jeans and a sweatshirt; and yet I am still the finest dressed man in the house. Oh, and even when I haven’t showered for the day and it’s late I still smell better than 97% of the other shoppers.

The sights my eyes see in a Wal-Mart put an instant spring in my step and make me realize that I don’t have it nearly as bad as I think! On my last trip, I saw, among other things, a Betty Boop denim jacket, 7,987,598 NASCAR hats, an 883-pound woman in a motorized cart (first time in my life I felt bad for a motor vehicle), and just countless run down, sad, pathetic looking people. Not to mention so many fake weaves and extensions, I was beginning to wonder if any horse in America had any hair left.

Self-medicating — the Wal-Mart way!

I also dig Dockers. Way back in 1998 when I worked for MBNA, the evil but now defunct credit card empire, I was what I like to refer to as a “white collar punk.”  I was full on against corporate rules, corporate etiquette, dress codes, mission statements, Starbucks coffee, Dilbert cartoons, water cooler conversations, synergy, thinking outside the box, and so on and so forth.

I never wore anything really nice, because I couldn’t afford it, and didn’t see the sense in having to dress up for the prom when all I was doing was answering angry phone calls from degenerate, late paying, irritable, nasty, up-to-their-eyeballs-in-debt customers. So one day I was wearing these faded blue Dockers. They were khaki material and I would wear them out when I was in college.  They looked like hell, I will admit.  This corporate muppet called Jim Leonard comes up to me (he LOOKED like a Muppet, funny beard, big glasses, he actually looked like the one coked up douche bag in Die Hard that dimes out Bruce Willis to the scary German terrorists ’cause he wants to score with Holly McClain, aka Bruce Willis’ wife in the movie) and goes, “Hey guy, where’s your suitcoat?” (First off, calling someone guy INSTANTLY makes you an asshole). So I jokingly said it’s in the closet. Well, he is poking around my cubicle, looking under it, and just being flat out obnoxious. And he keeps asking “where is it?” So I am messing with him and I say it’s in the cleaners, it’s in my car, I lent it to a coworker and all that. Finally, he says “so where is it really, Dockers boy?” 

Yes, he called me “Dockers Boy.” Like I sit around on a porch with a bunch of yuppies and we talk about pointless stuff but all you can see is our pants. DOCKERS BOY! Are you serious? This dude had a beard, which I don’t think is the most professional thing in the world to have by the way, and this guy is dissin’ me because I am rocking a pair of comfy 100% cotton Dockers. Looking back, I love that he called me that. At age 22 it fired me up, at age 34 it makes me laugh my ass off.   

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