It's the MOST Wonderful Time of the Year

I was making fun of Wal-Mart the other day in Escape Velocity. I make fun of them in my regular life a lot, too, but I'm referring to my November 4th News-blog where I said:

Wal-Mart Cuts Prices For Holidays. The story says their earnings for the third quarter were off. So they are being forced to take these drastic measures. As I read this story, one of the voices in my head started singing Linda Ronstadt's Poor, Poor, Little Me. I wonder if Wal-Mart is set up to take donations?

I admit my reaction to this mega-store's plight was a little callus. I mean they've always been nice to me. They even take back all the crap we buy there that doesn't work -- no questions asked.

I do hate it in the winter time when they lock the entrance to the garden shop. They have this store front, you see, that is about a quarter of a mile long and a parking lot that matches it. In the summer you may enter the building from either end of the parking lot. In the winter they lock the garden shop entrance so, if you have to park on that end of the building, because the lot is full, it's quite a hike. It is even worse if you know you want to buy something that you KNOW is just inside the garden shop door. This means you have to walk a quarter mile out side the store to get to the other door, a quarter mile inside the store to get what you came for, a quarter mile back to the main entrance inside the store again, and then another quarter of a mile outside the store to get back to the car.

I don't know about you, but there aren't too many things that I am willing to walk a mile for. I have the TV remote duct taped to my hand, for God's sake. I spent three days making sure my leather recliner is exactly halfway between the kitchen and the bathroom. So I'm not going to walk a friggin' mile at Wal-Mart! (Interestingly, during the winter months, they sell exercise equipment at that end of the store.)

Annnnyway . . . I saw a follow up story in the news a couple of days later that said Wal-Mart and Target were in this fierce price cutting war because of Wal-Mart's declaration to cut pricing to avoid a repeat of their off third quarter earnings. Again, I thought, "Serves them right, the pricks. How dare they want to make all that money?" Then, "If they are cutting prices that much, that stuff must have been way over priced to start with."

Then I saw another story yesterday that said Wal-Mart was going to cut prices, yet again, in their toy departments. Now remember, all of these stories have been prominently featured among the national news headlines, so somebody thinks these are important news stories.

Or are they?

There have been holiday sales since Eve discovered fig leaves were good for wearing as well as eating; since Noah opened his first pet store after the flood. Look, I know Wal-Mart is so big that their profit affects the GNP but what's with the flurry of news stories about Wal-Mart's price cutting during the holiday sales season? Or is it back door advertising?

Has Wal-Mart discovered that they could save millions of dollars in advertising by handing out a few well-timed press releases instead? Is this the equivalent of a Blue Light Special on the front page of the paper?

I didn't know. So Escape Velocity sent a team of crack reporters to the Donald Oppenheimer Institute of Informational Knowledge. There we interviewed Dr. Ronald Oppenheimer and asked him what Wal-Mart was up to.

"Well," He began, Taking a soiled hanky from his back pocket, blowing his nose, opening the rag to examine its contents, refolding it and then proceeded to polish his eyeglasses with the same rag. All the time he appeared in deep thought. "Here at the Donald Oppenheimer (Donald was my father) Institute of Informational Knowledge we have developed the science of Oppenmetrics. We did this to enhance our status as expert witnesses in matters like these. That and I like the way it sounds: Opp-en-met-rics. It just flows off of your tongue, don't you think?"

He had to ask his question twice because our crack team of reporters were distracted by a brownish-green smear on Dr. Oppenheimer's left eyeglass lens. After a few moments they were able to get the interview back on track and re-ask the question concerning the efficacy of the recent Wal-Mart news stories.

"After analysing all of the data and applying the sound principals of Oppenmetrics I have come to this conclusion: They are a bunch of greedy bastards. And what's up with one just entrance during their busiest time of the year?"

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