The admission that I am a confused man will come as no big surprise to most who know me. But this time, I think I have some justification for my extreme bewilderment.
I was in a food store the other day – as in FOOD STORE – and I found myself checking out deals on VCRs, DVD players, clothing and flowers. None of these materials I can actually consume as I would, say, a potato, some ice cream or a sirloin steak (not necessarily in that order). Nevertheless, there they were. I also lingered over bins full of movies and there was also a sale on lawn furniture. In a food store.
The same day, I dropped into a big drug store. While there, I checked out some cool digital cameras and on my way out, walked by aisles of various processed foods and household cleaners. In a drug store. In another drug store, I window shopped all sorts of fancy giftware. Some pretty nifty stuff tucked away between the eyedrops, the toenail clippers and the shampoo. Plus, oh yes, the drugs.
And one big store seems to have thrown the towel in completely and said, what the heck, let’s sell it all. About the only thing you can’t buy there is a gun or a tractor. Drugs, food, clothes, electronics – it has it all.
We have tire stores that sell hockey equipment, TVs and evergreens and hardware stores that sell fancy glassware and even books. Then there are book stores that sell movies, music and magazines, and stationery stores that sell trips to New Zealand.
Donut and coffee shops sell soups and sandwiches while variety stores sell hotdogs, coffee and fresh muffins.
Insurance companies sell investment “vehicles” and everybody sells insurance including universities.
Farm stores sell everything city folk could need while arenas have fast-food restaurants and pubs housed within them.
Might this all be called diversification? Or might it just be harking back to the good old days of the country general store and even the city department store where the idea seemed to be to meet as many of the customers’ needs as possible to prevent them from moving on down the street.
The general store in the village near where I grew up (population 50) stocked literally something of almost everything except cars and trucks (and still does). And the store, located in an old hotel, had trouble accommodating all the merchandise and so it was displayed from every square inch of wall and even ceiling space. There were logs and fence posts, and Christmas trees outside, huge bags of peanuts and kids’ wagons inside. A visit there for a boy was better than a school field trip. It was impossible to get tired of scanning the place for unusual items.
And yes, there were guns. Shiny new rifles for farmers to protect their crops and livestock.
It would be interesting to know what this movement towards generalization by the big stores, especially, represents, from a sociological point of view. Of course, the profit motive plays a big part and so stores will sell “anything for a buck” like the hillbilly characters Larry, Darrell and Darrell from the old Bob Newhart Show.
But why did they move away from that early rural concept in the last century to the era of shops that specialized in one thing only? And why do they now seem to be moving back again?
Are merchants in our city, as I’ve heard it speculated a few times, just doing their best to get ready for Walmart, slated to open soon?
Meanwhile, the big players in the newspaper industry I work in have started TV shows of their own and publish telephone directories.
But if next week, as a newspaper reporter, I am selected to host the News at Noon on Channel 52, I might be forced to retire. So I can have more free time to hang around the gas station. Washing my car.
©2006 Jim Hagarty
