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.