When I got back from Afghanistan, one of my favorite things to do was go to Wal-Mart.
Honestly, I liked going to any store. On leave, I spent two hours wandering around a Mexican supermarket staring at all the products. But Wal-Mart was so big, so overpowering; everything you could ever need, right there. And you could walk out of the store with it: today, right now, you could buy yourself a futon, a chair, an extension cord, a new CD...anything you wanted, and have it immediately. I'd go to Wal-Mart on the flimsiest of pretexts, and spend hours wandering its endless aisles. I've never been much of a shopper, and if you'd told me before that I'd ever love Wal-Mart more than any other place on earth, I would have thought you were crazy. And if you'd told me that my very favorite aisle in all of that megalopolis of capitalism would be the Barbie aisle, the conversation would have been pretty much over.
I was never much for Barbie. My mother did not like Barbie, and although I'm sure she would have allowed me to play with Barbie had I been so inclined, it was
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