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Big BoxesDecember 12, 2006 Couple of days ago in the course of an e-mail correspondence I said I'd never been in a big-box store. My incredulous friend said there had to be a blog in that. "Someone else's blog maybe," I said. "I've barely even seen a big-box store." Not so fast there, sistah. Why did I jump to the conclusion that I had to have been in a big-box store to blog about big-box stores? I could blog about never having been in a big-box store! Besides, I'm pretty sure I have at least seen a big-box store. A long-time neighbor of mine talked continually about getting this, that, or the other thing at what sounded to me like "Cosco." At some point, probably on the bus between Woods Hole and Boston, I spotted a sign, "Costco" (I think in orange letters), and intuited immediately that this was the same thing. The fact that I frequently have to visit the INTA (International Trademark Association) website to (re)discover that the "M" in "Wal-Mart" is capped and that there's no hyphen in "Kmart" makes me think that I've never seen either one of them. (As soon as I finish this blog, I'm gonna go check again.) So no, I've never been in a big-box store. The closest is probably Kappy's, the big liquor store in Falmouth that every non-teetotaler on Martha's Vineyard hits en route to the ferry as long as we're not running late and sometimes even if we are. So compelling is the opportunity to save a few bucks. To live on Martha's Vineyard for any length of time is to be unalterably convinced that you're being ripped off, and it's true, the standard estimate is that the cost of living is 20 percent higher here than elsewhere in the state -- and Massachusetts is not a cheap state to live in. By the time gas prices started flirting with $3/gallon elsewhere in the country, we'd been paying $3+ for so long that we just yawned. We do, however, let the gas gauge drop toward Empty when we're about to drive off-island, and on the way home our last stop before the ferry dock is likely to be at a gas station. After Kappy's, that is. Kappy's is a big warehouse-like building. The lighting is minimal, the shelving no-frills, and lots of the booze is in, you guessed it, boxes. (Come to think of it, lots of the booze at Our Market, where I buy my beer, is in boxes. Maybe Our Market is a little-box store?) My idea of a big-box store is bigger, brighter, and more plastic, and with more out-of-control kids running around. Am I close? Maybe if there were a big-box store on Martha's Vineyard, or if I went off-island more often, I could claim some brownie points for not contributing to the Malling of America, but how much virtue accrues when temptation is so totally absent? There are no big-box stores on my horizon. I'm not trying to feed a family of four on $30,000 a year. Ditto my avoidance of chain bookstores, for which I nurse a personal as well as political loathing that goes back to my days as an independent-bookstore worker. Sometimes I do pride myself on only using Amazon.com for reference checking -- but the other day I broke down and placed my first order with them in about four years. No excuses: I needed the book fast for a job I'm doing, and I didn't want to invest time in locating an indy bookstore with a copy in stock or money in having it overnighted. Smug I try not to be. Since I've got a self-righteous streak that with the slightest encouragement will hijack my mouth, this takes considerable vigilance. If I lived down the street from a big-box store, or a Barnes & Noble for that matter, and never bought anything there, I'd probably be insufferable.
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