Wal-Mart warehouses, if you miss your "appointment", the same for fifty other trucks, they make you sit for days. Prime, black block letters, white trailers, gives more miles than hours. Every hour is a diomond crusted handful of minutes and every minute is personally chiseled from gold. And that horrible dispatcher, the fat one that yells. Why don't you hang up? You listen to her howl about time, money, responsibility. Responsibility....

We drive all night after a three day trip. Then, stand in line waiting for a CB call to back in to the loading dock. Only you're asleep with your head on the wheel. I will my eyes open sitting in the passanger seat. The sun comes up. The sun moves around in the sky. Four hours listening for our truck number. Most guys are on their own.

There are no Wal-Marts in Seattle city limits. We hear stories. We shudder. We think of global labor and how to make corporations responsible. We don't even know what goes on in our own discount warehouses.

And yet, there's always a flip side to the coin. Wal-Mart makes big parking lots. Wal-Mart lets the Big Trucks in. The first times, by the cash registers, my purist sensibilities pressure me back outside into the heat of Dallas, the snow of Mishawaka.

Humility.

I look forward to Wal-Mart. I get my hands on watermelons, lettuce and grapes. I buy a chicken, carrots, mushrooms and potatoes.

Remember the Wal-Mart in Gallop? Wreaths of blood red chili peppers.