At the base of the chestnut hardwood staircase lay four rooms separated only by pillars reaching from floor to ceiling. The entire basement is underground and is lit by adjustable orange-yellow lights. The beige walls lined with six-inch espresso wood paneling compliment the shining hardwood floors. Directly to the right of the stairs is where the entertainment room rests.  The reclining leather chairs envelope whoever choses to sink into their russet skin. Set up in two rows of three accompanied by a matching couch. The pillows on the couch bulge like the breasts of a man who spends too much time in the gym. Its arms are cylindrical and smooth. Every edge is lined with round stud-like bolts, the back edge resembling a French-style mustache extending to only three inches off the ground. Below the couch is the maroon and beige Persian rug. Its fringes on either end cuddle in a knot on the floor. The rug holds the rows of furniture, hiding the threaded flowers and their cris-crossing stems. There are folded blankets placed on one chair in either row and on the couch. Two of which are closely stitched blankets with dark, bright, and tarnished green, white, blue, and yellow detailing; their images disguised by the symmetrical folds. The third blanket is a furry purple throw, significantly thicker than the stitched blankets.

In front of the chairs hangs three TV’s in an upside-down pyramid formation. Two thirty-two-inch TVs occupy the top tier and bellow sits a wide seventy-five-inch screen. This wall is completely covered with espresso wooden paneling. Each TV is accented with 2” framework. Black speakers fill the space available adjacent to the TVs. The speakers are also framed.

On the wall perpendicular to the TV hangs six framed jerseys signed by their designated sports star. One on top of another in a row of three, each clean and pressed for display. Their numbers and styles differ, as does each scribble of a signature.

On the opposing wall is a row of five showcases. One-foot-deep, three feet wide, and seven feet tall, the cases meet just below the ceiling at an arch. The cases match the espresso paneling that lines the walls. The paneling that follows the arch from end-to-end extends an inch away from the wall and in four inches wide. Each case is unique decorated by the memorabilia behind the glass. They are illuminated with a warm light from the top of each arch. There is a case dedicated to Hank Arron, lined with photos, news clippings, and a signed baseball and bat. Next, a signed Dan Marino Dolphin’s jersey and helmet, photograph, and a signed football. Then, there is a glass shelf three feet high holding two signed baseballs and a sparkling Brave’s World Series ring. The ring sits up in its vinyl holster, glistening. The gold band is overwhelmed by an iron stained square display. It reads the date and name of the winning team around the outside of the display. A stampede of diamonds lines the inside of the square, surrounding a shimmering blue stone that fills the center of the display like a swollen sea. Below rests a signed Brave’s jersey and a third base plate. The base is stained with clay smudges in some places and cleat imprints in others. The next two displays carry signed football and basketball jerseys.

The owner of the house, Ralph, and his son Andrew are watching multiple football and baseball games, and a golf tournament. They are in the entertainment center with the lights at their brightest setting. Their skin glows and eyes dance in reflection of the flashing TV monitors. The air carries the smell of a tobacco and wood scented candle from another room. They both sit in center row of seats with a spare in between them. They are reclined, torsos and legs completely limp, heads rested on the swollen cushions, breathing slowly and rhythmically. Simultaneously their eyes are alert and stern, arms gesturing at plays, and mouths are running constantly. Both crinkle their noses and squint to see. Their smiles force a crescent moon out of their squinty eyes and lines in the exterior corners. Gravity has a more apparent effect on Ralph’s skin than on Andrews. His hair is salted and his creases do not retract when he is rested. Andrew keeps his beard shaved close but still casts a five o’clock shadow. The remote control is firmly held in Ralph’s hands, ready to flip between events during various commercial breaks. The two men talk excitedly back and forth about every play. The buzz of sports entertainment and laughter fill the room. They speak with projection and excitement. Andrew flicks his wrist to check the time. He migrates to the couch in the front of the room and capes himself in a stitched blanket.  He plops down, landing horizontally to completely occupy the couch. Conversation is diluted with fatigue and they eventually slip into a peaceful slumber.

Logan Nazemzadeh

English 1101

Smith

October 11, 2016

The Superstore of Superstore

A giant warehouse stretches across the entire width of a parking lot the size of two football fields. There are two entrances, one on the left side and one on the right. Grey bricks stack on top of each other stretching approximately one-hundred feet in the air. A yellow sign reads Walmart on the top middle section of the building. The inside of Walmart is lit up like a hospital, but it is nowhere near as clean. Specs of dust and grime corrode solid white tile floors underneath the feet of customers. Overhead, a Rolling Stones song plays to appeal to the average age of the customer. At the entrance, customers are greeted by a wrinkled, not so cheery, employee with long grey hair that she keeps in a bun.

On the left side of the store is the food section. The air fills with the smell of freshly baked bread, and the sights of fresh fruits and vegetables trap the eyes. Brown wooden legs stem from the ground reaching the hip at their ends. Atop of these legs are wooden tables that play as a resting place to black plastic crates filled to the brim with produce. Bright red apples, long green cucumbers, and yellow spike covered pineapples desperately beg to be bought by the hungry consumer. Behind the fresh produce section lies the frozen goods. The smell of baked foods is replaced with the subtle hum of refrigerators. Four isles of freezers stretch back to back standing eight feet in height. There is a cold breeze that bursts outward when the doors are opened, nipping at the legs of the shopper. A bright white light shines down over the food as if to present it in an appetizing manner. Frozen meals, ice cream, and other premade frozen products provide a busy customer on the go with a solution to his dilemma of not having enough time to cook. Finally, behind the frozen foods are ten isles of boxed and sealed foods that don’t need refrigeration. Just as the hum of the freezers had replaced the scent of fresh food, the constant hum is now replaced by the vibrant visuals of advertisement. Products are placed systematically; they pander to the consumer they are meant to persuade. A short pigtailed girl with bleach blonde hair stands in front of the cereal. Brand name items are strategically placed to stare back into her green eyes at the same height as her. The blue rectangular box of Frosted Flakes stands out. Tony the Tiger’s orange stripe’s and wide yellow and black eye’s pierce her eye’s with a glare that says, “They’re grrrrrreat, so you better buy them now!!”.

On the right hand of the store is…. well everything else. Walmart Superstores are known for having practically everything needed to survive an apocalypse. In the middle of the store is the clothing department. All that is seen is off brand clothing that is supposed to represent brand names. Polo style shirts can be found. Jeans and khaki pants are supposed to be hung systematically by size, but are unorganized from customers fishing through the racks. Black and red checkered flannels for the fall season are poorly folded in a messy stack next to a matching blue and white flannel. A bearded man stands in front of the collection of t-shirts that are not so neatly folded into cubbies that reach ten feet in the air and stretch twenty feet wide. He is wearing a white t-shirt that is covered by blue overalls and on his feet are a pair of leather tattered work boots. He holds up a grey extra-large shirt that has a popular internet meme of a grumpy cat that reads “I had fun once… it was awful”. Chuckling to himself, he tosses the shirt into his shopping cart and continues on his way. Farther right of the clothing section is health care products. In the front is a pharmacy. A line of five customers waiting to be helped stretches across the space and three others sit on a grey metal bench waiting for their prescriptions to be filled. A man in a white lab coat busily hustles through various selections pills and medicines. The dead look on his face is only trumped by his lack of enthusiasm when talking to his clients.

Further back past the health care is where the sporting goods are held. Racks of bicycles reach for the ceiling accompanied by the small motorized children’s cars and trucks. Further on is a rotating collection of firearms protected by a clear glass casing. A gentleman named John is standing in front of the weapons with his eyes on a .22 silver rifle. John is sporting a blue and white gingham button down, paired with red shorts and loafers. He seems to be enjoying his time at Walmart by the smile on his face. John proceeded to tell how Walmart has some of the best people watching that anyone could ever see. “You never know what you’re going to see when you come in here.” John says with awe “Sometimes you’ll see nothing but average Joe’s like me, but other times you get lucky and you might see something like a child riding on the back of a motorized cart by holding onto its ends and letting his stomach drag across the filthy floor”.

Walmart has always been the home to mischief. When walking out it would not be unlikely to hear the whooping and hollering of teenagers as they wreck any cleanliness left in the store. Many of these trouble makers will even hang out in the Walmart parking lot until late hours of the night doing nothing at all, despite the “No Loitering” signs posted. Kids such as these are what cause the majority of the pain associated with working at Walmart according to some of the employees.

One thing is undeniable, Walmart lives up to the name of “Superstore”. First, in the large warehouse is everything from a decades supply of groceries to enough firearms and ammunition to supply a small militia. Secondly, the setup of the store is strategically thought out to influence certain purchases by certain customers. Finally, the occupants within a Walmart are almost as interesting as the store itself …. you truly never know what you’re going to see.

With gray carpet and white marble like floors dividing the library floor, the stark white marble like floors reflect the fluorescent light bulbs as far as the eye can see. The library, lit by fluorescent light bulbs aimed towards the ceiling illuminate the vast expanse of technology, people, and books under it. The light creates a contrasting white to its surroundings in comparison to the ceiling to which it is mounted to. Basking under these fluorescent lights are the denizens of Georgia State huddled at different centers of amenities, leaving other areas almost completely vacant. As people with Georgia State access enter to and fro the library the foot traffic gravitates towards the center of the room while the opposite ends of the library are almost completely vacant leaving a void where only chairs idly wait as if wondering when the next butt would be placed upon them.

While other areas of the library are left somewhat empty, an area of active traffic and activity are the computers and the seating booths found on the far left of the library located next to the library classroom 1. The U-shaped seating booths adjacent to the library classroom have groups of students sitting together. The Georgia State residents sitting at one of the groups of cabins are somewhat loud and rowdy. They are paying no mind to the unspoken rule library rule of thumb and continue to enjoy one another’s company. Fashioned in only muted colors of grays and blues, the small band of merry students does a good job of compensating for being nothing short of loud. Despite the fact the group remains unmoving from their seats, they also simultaneously create a mess that is composed of open book bags and food sprawled all over the table, which ever so slighty spills over into the booth beside them where they sit.

Parallel to the seating booths and the library classroom are the array of blue screens monitors positioned on tables like small islands. The islands have students sitting in hunched back postures with eyes nailed to the monitor reviewing subjects and reading their online course materials. One male student with a dark skin complexion wearing a yellow jacket is knee deep in his work as he furiously types away. Moreover, without a second glance begins to fill the white monitor at each flicker of the finger and now and then only ever returns a glance at the screen for a quick spot check and resumes his work. With book bag agape and hands busy, he has been working diligently and doesn’t intend to stop till he has finished.

The other side of the library is comprised of the technical help desk where student hired clerks are sitting on high stools hidden behind a desk assisting anyone inside that may need it. The clerk deskbound waits patiently with eyes forward and hands on the desk. His hair is long and brown and is out of his face but somehow manages to fall back in place and has to be repeatedly brushed aside revealing excess skin on his neck folding over itself. Even if not unmoving the assistant has heavy breathing patterns and the slightest effort of a keystroke is followed up by a heavy gasp. As students or persons in need approach, suddenly his sloth-like manner is covered up and he is invigorated and composed. Once done the sloth-like manner returns and he sits idly waiting again.

Next to the counter where the help desk was are mini stations for students to approach and make reservations in advance. The number of people that approach is few due to the nature of how quickly reservations get to fill up for the novelty of the study rooms and competition for them highly sought out for. An Asian girl, wearing a gray plain sweatshirt and navy blue jeans with brown hair cascading as she walks, stops at the station. Typing and only clicking a bit she finishes and walks off into the distance.

This evening in the library, on the second floor, it is not empty, but it is not overpopulated. The second floor is a floor devoted to computers and reference sources. On the ceiling, there are six fluorescent bar lights, casting a silhouette on the ceiling, and a very harsh, bright light on the floor, but it is what is needed to see. Along the walls, there are small rooms reserved for study groups. Ten all together. In those rooms, there are rectangular rolling chairs, made up of tiny hard circular material that gives the chair a hard texture. They are scattered about the rooms, all each facing a different direction. In the middle of those rooms is a long wooden table, with a glass frame in the center. Above that table is a whiteboard in a wooden frame. Many of them have drawings on them in Expo marker. A lot are math equations: numbers and addition symbols in sloppy columns across the board. One board just has a bunch of scribbles on it, with an array of circles above it. It is undetermined what the diagram represents. A glass door protects the room. On the first room from the left, there is remainders of tape that was once holding up an ad plastered on the glass. All the rooms have a large flat screen computer on the wall. Behind it, there is a tangled mess of black wires with a different color piece of tape marking each one, ranging from red, to yellow, to blue.

In the center of the second floor, there is a large, deep opening for where the stairs are. There are 25 stairs in all, and after the first 12 there is a small platform before the other 12 escalate. During the one hour, many people exited the stairs onto the second floor. Across from the stairs, there are workstations and an array of computers and rolling chairs like the ones in the study rooms. There are nine workstations total: They are divided into groups of three, with three in each group facing one another in a triangular format. The workstation provides a trapezoidal table for each computer and mouse. Each computer has a black keyboard below it, with white letter and number markings. The rest of the computers are in rows of five, with a long, white table holding all of them. There are six rows of these. Along the OTHER side of the wall, there is a view overlooking Decatur Street. This whole wall is made up of glass, in a grid-like fashion, as there are brown bars sectioning off each rectangle of glass. There are seven sections going up, and eleven going across. The floor is a carpet of navy green color, also in a grid like fashion. Each square of carpet has a shade of darker navy green stripes in many different sizes. Some of the stripes are thin, some thick. On the floor, there are nine sections of cushioned chairs and tables. Each chair is a small one, with a stripe-like design, of yellow, green, brown and purple stripes. There are two chairs alongside one another, and two facing them the same way. In the middle, there is a marble top table that is square-shaped. In the corner of the room, there is a printing station that includes a computer for assigning the printing jobs. A sign reads “WORKSTATION DOWN” on the computer, letting people know that that computer is out of service, hence, not to use it.

In the third study room from the left, there is a dark-skinned man wearing a long-sleeved gray shirt, and dark wash blue jeans- he is standing up in front of the board and talking. He has a pair of white headphone draped lazily across his neck. He is smiling as he talks, and his head bobs up and down when his mouth isn’t moving, like he is communicating with another person in the room. There is another dark-skinned male sitting in one of the rolling chairs and rocking it back and fourth, looking up at the man. He is talking, and he is wearing a red snap back, khakis, a solid green shirt and a pair of orange Nikes. In the workstation area, there is a male with black hair and facial hair with silver Beats on. He is wearing a solid orange shirt, and blue medium wash flare jeans. He seems to have a short, solid build. He is writing something on a large notebook and doesn’t look up from it for a long while. The computer in front of him is black; he is not working on it: his attention is focused directly below him at the crumpled paper with scribbled words across the lines. When he does finally look up, it is up at the ceiling: he closes his eyes for three seconds and lets out a small sigh before resuming to his writing. A janitor in a white blouse and blue sweatpants is heard rolling a trashcan across the aisle near the spot I am sitting. He is a light-skinned man with brown facial hair on his chin, and rolls the can with one arm, while the other arm bops against his side, his gaze fixed on the wall opposite across the room.

In the area where the cushioned chairs are, in one of the chairs, there is a white Asian female wearing a burgundy T-shirt and faded jeans with rips on the knees. She is wearing black Vans, has a high ponytail that drapes along her right shoulder, and a green navy jacket resting on her back over her shoulders. In her lap is a black laptop which she is typing on. Two sections over, there are two girls in the chairs that are right next to each other. One girl is tan, she looks of Indian descent and is wearing a white tank top with a burgundy cardigan over it. She has black hair which is medium-length and wears faded jeans with white tennis shoes. She is facing the other girl, and they are both laughing and talking. The other girl is white, wearing a neon purple fitness jacket that is zipped all the way up to her breasts, revealing a black tank top. She is wearing black compression shorts and pink Nike running shoes. Both girls have textbooks in their laps, and a mess of books is seen on the table in front of them. Two sections behind them, a couple is snuggled together on the chair- both are Asian, one is male and female. The male holds out an iPhone in front of them both, and they both proceed to make a pouty face at the camera before the flash goes off. They look at the photo and grab one another, laughing.

Hailey is a new freshman at Georgia State University. Her outfit was a well-blended contrast of burgundy and black; k. Her dark jeans were cuffed at the ankles and she had on a pair of off-brand maroon converse. Her hair was up in a short ponytail. Hailey shared that she enjoyed the library because she liked the fact that it was a convenient place to do homework, as it was on campus and generally close to all the students. She also commented that it wasn’t too much of a deathly quiet space, so people weren’t constantly too afraid to make the slightest noise, and they could still have fun to some degree while completing their assignments. This comment seems to be true, as there is always a dull roar on the second floor of the library. The people who occupy this space treat it as a place they are visiting: with respect. There are no food or drinks allowed by the computers. Many of the occupants have student ID’s by their computer or around their neck, giving reason to believe that they are students wishing to complete their work in the library.

The floors which are square tiles with a dark brown color which is similar to the color of coffee. The color is similar to the color of coffee was convenient as can be used for hiding any coffee spills and stains or just be used as an aesthetic. On this floor was black colored chairs, stools, and tables near the edges of the floor, a counter with three cash registers and a pickup area, and a light skinned African American lady around 5’5’’ with a black Nike hat, neon green Nike jacket, dark grey leggings, and purple Nike shoe walking across the floor to the cash register and ordered a pumpkin spice frappuccino and a salad sandwich. Though the store can fit all the items, the interviewee Marian Vo, an Asian girl with red hair wearing a pink polo shirt, blue shorts, brown sandals say that the place should have expanded its space.

The counter, located in the middle of the store, has tannish colors with many small products like in front of it and an open fridge with sandwiches, bottled coffees, cookies, and cartons of milk and juices. On the counter are cash registers and last second shopping items like gift cards and snacks. The placement is quite convenient for the customers to have a fast order on one side of the counter where the cash register is and pick it up on the other side and it is a good selling tactic to put small consumables on the counter for a quick sell. On top of the counter, customers can pick a plethora of options on the three black chalkboards with their products written in green chalk like ice caramel macchiato and a double bacon and a cake pop which an Asian man with a black suit, grey dress pants, and a blue button-up shirt had ordered for him and his daughter which the infant had on a pink onesie and a ponytail.

The workspace is a small space filled with equipment like the coffee makers, espresso machines, verismo machines, clover machine, presses, and grinders to make coffee which is all silver in color. The workspace is a nifty spot where it’s behind the counter where the orders are placed and picked up so customers can go in and out quickly with their orders. At the workspace, employees wearing a green apron and visor for the uniform either take the customer’s order, make their order, or throw out the garbage. One male employee who was a pale in skin and quite skinny around 5’10’’ had on the usual uniform of a green apron, green visor, black pants, black shoes,  and also had a gold watch was taking an order of a chile frappuccino.

The tables and chairs also have similar coloring as coffee, brown and black, and the reason is most likely for stains and aesthetics. The shop provided them so that customers can stay for brief or long periods of time to do whatever customers want like using your phone or laptop, which they do provide free Wi-fi. It is setup for you to relax, be with and conversate with friends and acquaintances, and to use their internet service to your utmost advantage like doing homework or studying. The interviewee Marian Vo who was on her black lenvono laptop and drinking a caramel frappuccino while resting on a metal chair and table said that she comes here to relax and to use the Wi-fi.