The Tree.

I hate Wal-Mart. Everything about the place suggests something very shady is taking place deep beneath the surface - merchandise simply shouldn't be so inexpensive and readily available. Being a semi-stingy person, I'm always up for pinching a penny, but the growing murmur of bad press (which Wal-Mart has deflected with lower prices and sappy commercials) has left me with an increasingly uneasy feeling with the company. I remember my first trip to Wal-Mart, shortly before my first Christmas in the US (1994). I recall my Mom being very excited by the price of brand-name laundry detergent and bottled water. As humans, and more specifically as Americans, we are programmed to get more for less (i.e. spend less energy hunting the animal by throwing a spear into its side). We believe that we gain if we get more than we think we give – Wal-Mart exploits this instinct.

This morning, Tia and I stopped at the aforementioned Wal-Mart (which has recently “gone Super” putting unneeded competitive strain on an even broader genre of local merchants) for just “a couple of things”. The Sunday Paper, a bottle of generic Windex, and a couple of Christmas candles later, we found ourselves thumbing through the electronics section and even clothing – all of which was substantially cheaper than I’ve seen it on our many shopping trips in these recent and crazy holiday weekends.

Needless to say, the $10 I planned on spending, turned into $116.31 after the $40 cash back. Those crisp and bright 20’s looked like they had just been printed on location. They looked noble, but tender, as though they had no place outside the cash drawers of corporate America. They were intended to be spent on McDonalds or at Exxon, or on a later trip to Wal-Mart. It wasn’t to be, for today was the day we bought our Christmas Tree!! That special time of year when the non-tax-paying black market becomes everybody’s friend, and spending absurd amounts of cash on temporary décor is the norm.

Those two crisp 20’s knew something was going terribly wrong as we drove deeper into the rural hills and over the frozen brooks of Southern Maine. Down one dirt road, and up another, we finally arrived at the “Cut Your Own Christmas Tree” place. We found the perfect pine, we cut it for what seemed like hours in the blowing snow, we tied it to the roof, and in a magic moment handed those two crisp 20’s to their new owner; a young man with a Carhartt jacket and a busy grin on his face. They had been liberated! There would be no tax paid, and no paper record detailing this transaction. I know it won’t be long before those crisp 20’s find themselves back in the corporate money drawers, but when they do – oh the stories they will tell! For tonight they rest in the breast pocket of a Carhartt jacket.