...And Each Town Looks the Same to Me the Movies, and the Factories

It's weird when you relocate. Because it's not just the differences you try to adjust to, for me it's the sameness that I always find a little unnerving. As though there is some vanilla flavor washing across the country and everything will be the same eventually.

"Now All Restaurants are Taco Bell." (Who remembers DEMOLITION MAN?)

And while there is comfort to be found when you're out of your element not once but twice as I was last month (move to GA then POOF to Chicago for two weeks) it's nice to know you can find knee high stockings and macaroni and cheese at the WalMart, I miss having a store more specific. More......local.

When we left David Letterman's neighborhood and moved to Kentucky, I would get sad.....because I would confuse our little Kroger grocery store with the one where we used to live. I'd be walking up and down the aisles trying to figure out why bread wasn't where it was supposed to be.......and then I'd get teary eyed because I'd realize I wasn't HOME. I was in this new place. Even when four years had gone by and it really had become my home....I still thought of that first, little Krogers as my grocery store.

Now, two re locations later I'm finally back in a place that HAS Krogers (and PUBLIX HOOHOO MAN that rocks) but what I've realized is that Walmart has homogenized the shopping experience to such an extent that I don't even notice that it isn't my store. I know that the WalMarts in Northern Chicagoland have a HUGE selection of foundation and hosiery for pasty white girls like me. I also know that despite some slight variation in store set up, I can find anything in Walmart.

I've got too many tiny humans to feed and diaper NOT to shop at Walmart. They've got me. But someday (shaking fist at the sky like Scarlett O'Hara).........
I WILL NEVER SHOP AT WALMART AGAIN.

That day, to be shortly proceeded by a lottery win.