I just had a lesson in corporate think, which I fought off with quiet rage.

I woke up early this morning, around 4am. I turned on the TV and politicians and pundits were yelling at one another. Thankfully TV Land was showing a Cosby episode and it was one from the first two years, so I knew it would be good and it was. After Cosby I thought about going to sleep but I was in that too tired to go to bed but too awake to sleep mode. I realized it was Tuesday and it was new release DVD day. I remembered today was the release of Star Trek. While I didn’t like the movie all that much, it was worth it for me to think about buying the DVD. I also remembered the Ultimate Edition of Watchmen was out, which I did want to get.

Tired as I was, I figured going to get both would be worth my while and, despite loathing large corporate entities, with Walmart open 24 hours, I figured I could at least score on Star Trek. I had a feeling Fry’s would have both, but I knew I’d be asleep by the time they opened and like a spoiled kid I wanted them now.

I dragged myself out of the house, hit like a hammer with 40 degree weather I wasn’t expecting. I got in the car and drove the 5 miles to one of two Walmarts within a 5 mile radius from my apartment. As usual, I was greeted by an older person who is hired by guilt by Walmart to greet customers. It was 5am and she was tired, sitting on a scooter, but she was cheerful. I was tired so my usual defensive guard of getting in and getting out was down. It was, like I said, 5am so I headed to the food section figuring there might be some donuts available to get. Well, it was 5am not 6am so being corporate sticklers there weren’t any donuts out. Of curse, the independent store at the opposite corner of the street was selling donuts already.

While that didn’t surprise me, when I saw Walmart had a bunch of pies out for Thanksgiving, I kind of had a snooty attitude in my head that it would all be about the pumpkin pie. I was so ready, in my head, to go through the I don’t follow the White Man’s tradition speech I have every year because I want to have Sweet Potato Pie like I have with my family and sure enough Walmart had Sweet Potato Pies. Now I was still able to have a little bit of anger with it because the Sweet Potato Pies were $4.50 while the pumpkin pies were $3.00, but I knew from experience the last time I bought a Sweet Potato Pie (two years ago) it was from a soul food take out place and Whole Pies were $22.00 and a slice was $5. All things considered, a full pie for $4.50 was a bargain. I decided to give it a try, figuring even if the Pie was bad it would be good.

A detour to the juice aisle finally got me to the DVD section. Oh, wait, I couldn’t get to the DVD section because they had taped lined around the area and a sign saying it was temporarily closed for “customer protection.” A quick loom at the area showed no employees around but that peculiar wording saying “customer protection” only made me think they put the caution tape up because they were worried about people stealing DVDs. After watching The Prisoner (the real one not the AMC remake) I switched full on into Patrick McGoohan mode. I saw the normal display had been changed. With new releases out of DVDs, they would have been placed on the endcaps. The endcaps had been rearranged, with no new DVD releases. Music CDs were placed there, but they were of either Mexican of Christmas music. I was about to look around to find someone who might be able to lift the customer protection embargo, but I turned around and saw a bargain bin display for DVDs.

While I was crushed that the full Star Wars series was displayed with the likes of Robocop 3 as a bargain, I was kind of surprised to see Star Trek movies were on the display. In an obvious attempt to show geek cred, the Star Trek movies in the bargain area were Star Trek 2, 4, 6 and 8. Yes my friends who know geek code, to have the even numbered DVDs of the franchise proved to me someone in the marketing department was geek, because if you have the new release out, wouldn’t it make sense to play into geek culture and have on sale the even numbered ones on sale? Sure, geeks probably have the whole set but if they want to get their non-geek friends something for the holidays and you already are getting the new one, why not, for the low price of $13, get them ones that might make them like the series even more.

This actually made me mad because I couldn’t get the new one, didn’t even know if they had the new one and I couldn’t even get myself worked up about Ultimate Watchmen, yet they “tasked me” (thinking this in my best Khan hiss) which trying to push on me, without “customer protection” the even numbered movies. Plus, there was the whole Star Wars saga in the bargain bin. It was too much for my tired brain at 5am who drove through the cold and sleep just to buy the DVD.

I looked at the juice and Sweet Potato Pie I had in my hand and after looking up and seeing the security camera staring at me with its black circle mocking me, the old Number 6 mantra rang in my head to defy this corporate, soulless machine. I put everything back, knowing I could go home and, if I wished, order the DVDs online. It might take 3 days for them to come but I didn’t care. Principles were at stake. After I got the pie and juice put away, I was heading for the door and thought about the greeter. I had built up a head of steam, ready to give her a speech about being thought of as a criminal when I had done nothing wrong, of not getting help. Yes, I had built up a good head of steam, but when I saw her kindly face, I was still ready to hit her with a smack down but I remembered I was in Walmart, drone capital of the Matrix. I figured if she did talk to me and acknowledge I had nothing with me, even if I went into a rant, her programming wouldn’t register because when a greeter makes a comment they aren’t waiting for a real response. It’s like if a stranger says How are you they aren’t expecting to actually hear why your depressed. The just say it because they’re programmed to do it. We say fine and the conversation is done; form and function have been done.

So when the greeter, which was a bit of a surprise to be, actually did ask why I didn’t have any items, I told her exactly, “No one would help me,” in a slightly defeated tone. Do you know what her response was? “OK, have a good day.”

Yep, no offer to help, no acknowledgement that my statement was different than the normal response and no recognition a beat or two later and her maybe asking a follow up. No she went by script and that was it.