At least we have the best backdrop scenery of any Walmart!

I had not been inside a Walmart since the 'pandemic' got rolling and they would not let you in without a mask. I always enjoyed the role of being a social pariah and the disgusted looks I got from people when masks were optional, but then they became mandatory, and I was forced to shop for groceries online. Now I am addicted to the ease and efficiency of online grocery shopping and will never go back. The amount of time it saves is amazing too. You don't even lose any of the social interaction benfits, as I pick the groceries up and have developed relationships with the loaders. I arrive at dawn when they are still pretty fresh and chipper. I am not alone in this migration to pick-up and delivery either. The loaders told me how many more people are going that route lately.

Last week I needed to get a windshield chip repair kit. I also needed some sweatpants, candles, socks, and a few other miscellaneous items. I decided to actually go into Walmart and make an adventure out of it, as the mask ban had been long abandoned. Boy, have things changed in those couple of years! What a fucking mess! It looked like a Dollar Store in the hood with shit scattered all over the shelves like a bomb went off. There were Walmart staff shoppers picking and packing in every aisle. They seemed to be out of everything I needed, so I left, pretty sure that would probably be the last time I am ever in a Walmart or a grocery store. I am pretty sure the online shoppers are getting first crack at product.

As soon as I got home, I ordered everything I had wanted on Amazon. It all came instantly with no fuss, no muss. I am not a huge consumer or shopper as it is and get no joy going into stores, save for Sportsman's Warehouse to fondle guns. I am old enough to have seen the progression from mom & pop stores to the Sears and Kmart's and the birth and death of the shopping malls. Even Walmart is trying hard to even its keel in these rapidly changing economic times. Technology is making it a new game month by month. My Walmart just built a huge building to stage the pick-up and delivery part of their business. The pandemic just supercharged the transition. 

My father was the essence of a small mom and pop entrepreneur his whole life. He even lost two businesses to chain stores undercutting him. He eventually found a niche product he could eek a living out of. The reality is whatever business can provide the lowest cost combined with ease of shopping will win. There is no going back.