Old Guy, you sarcastically accuse me of being "an expert Walmart basher" after having shopped at a Wal-Mart only once, in southeast Nebraska. And, by the way, when the item fell apart three days later, I was in north central Kansas, about eighty miles away, so it wouldn't have been economically feasible for me to go back to the store and ask for a replacement or refund on an $9.00 item.

Okay, here's what the item was. When my wife and I went on the trip (her high school reunion), I forgot my reading glasses. I can get by nicely with a pair of 1.25 diopter drugstore glasses, so when I got to our destination, I asked where the nearest drugstore was where I could by a pair. I was informed that the only place where I could get something like that was at the local Wal-Mart (which was just outside the town limits so, although they had to pay state taxes, they didn't have to pay local taxes—neat, eh!??). All the glasses they had on the rack were cheap and flimsy, so I bought what appeared to be the sturdiest pair they had. Three days later, the right lens fell out. I managed to put the lens back in and hold it in place with a piece of adhesive tape. Very chic.

I keep a couple of pairs of these drugstore reading glasses handy, and I got them at a nearby drugstore here in Seattle. They usually run somewhere between $12 and $18, and unless you sit on them, they're pretty durable. The frames on the Wal-Mart glasses appeared to be made of something only slightly more durable than tinfoil. By the way, that particular pair of glasses was the best they had. Crap!

My knowledge of Wal-Mart comes partly from reading a great deal about Wal-Mart, and partly from listening to what friends in other parts of the country have to say when a Wal-Mart moves into their area—and what people said about Wal-Mart in that small town in Nebraska, where my shopping choices were limited to one store in the area—Wal-Mart.

Isn't the very essence of Capitalism the idea that the consumer should have a choice? And that the success or failure of a business should depend on the choices of those consumers? And that monopolies are an anathema to the whole Capitalist economic system because monopolies limit those choices?

Look, Old Guy:   I don't have to eat a regular diet of rotten eggs to know when an egg is rotten.

Don Firth