Dustin Hoffman said it in Rain Main, and he was right. K-Mart always sucked. Still, it had its limited charms. For the past twenty years, we had a K-Mart store less than a mile away. For something so close, it was curiously inconvenient -- moronic, unhelpful employees, and painfully slow check-out. Our local K-Mart was among the first retailers to use a self-serve check-out, maybe 15 years ago or more. It lasted about 6 months then disappeared forever, replaced by non-English-speaking clerks. That's the K-Mart way: cuttting edge to Stone Age overnight.
Despite that, despite the Soviet-bloc linoleum ambience, despite the understaffing, despite the distinct possibility of being in the checkout line behind a hillbilly grandma trying to pay with coins and not having enough of them and having a lengthy debate with herself about what to buy and what not to, despite all that and more, the K-Mart was useful.
If it wasn't, why would I, over the many years, have bought the following there?
Flowers, mulch, dirt, bicycles, shorts, socks, a coffee maker, paint, hardware, baseballs, footballs, basketballs, tennis balls, women's jewelry, swim trunks, flip-flops, pool chemicals, t-shirts, CD's, DVD's, beer, pop, Little Caesar's pizza, ice, trash bags, a nice autumn jacket I still wear, and countless things I can't remember.
And in recent years, there was my man Richard, a dentally-challenged semi-homeless man, hawking the "Street Speech" paper from the Columbus Coalition For The Homeless. Richard's a good dude -- we'd shoot the shit and I always bought a paper from him.
Anyhoo, my local K-Mart, along with many others, is done, history, closed forever, a casualty of the big-box wars. Kinda sad. Yup, K-Mart sucks, but it was damn handy. I miss it already.
And you know what? Wal-Mart sucks even worse!!
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