Despite two things, (1) someone who shall remain nameless teased “you’re going to blog about this…” and (2) I don’t support their business model, I have to give a big shout out to the box store of all box stores. The mother ship. Wal-Mart.

Let’s face it, M. and I are far too good looking and refined to rub shoulders with society’s flotsam and jetsam who shop at Wal-Mart. I mean look at us:

OK, maybe that picture doesn’t prove it. But, usually we are a damn fine looking couple.

So, M., partially for the western theme his company will be sporting at Linux world and partially because he’s one step away from riding the mechanical bull down at Gilley’s, was looking for a straw cowboy hat. We headed to a neighborhood in San Jose full of taqueritas, markets selling Corona, lard, tortillas and hot peppers and party stores with ample pinata aisles, and we found a western wear store. But, frankly, yuppie scum that we might be, $100 + for a styling, summer-weight straw Stetson is a mighty steep price for irony and costuming.

My brainstorm, whilst trucking through the Mexican part of town, was Wal-Mart. Your average working class dude out here in the wild west who wears a cowboy hat for real and rugged sun protection and keeping some sweat at bay, ain’t wearing a dress Stetson and silk shirt every day of the week. Nope, he needs something he can buy where America shops and not mind when it absorbs dirt and grime and dries and cracks under toil conditions.

Score. For a small $8 investment, I’m strutting my Wal-Mart smiling self throughout the merchandise, a re-shapeable straw working-man’s chapeau on my head.

Better yet, I’ve still been looking to avenge my pride with the nosiest and most painful of meddling landlords, Nick the Greek. After our fight that left me shouting that I would get my own damn patio table, I’ve been searching for satisfaction. Joy and wonder, for $10 Wal-Mart had just the thing, and Nick will be eating his Grecian, old-world heart out when he sees the faux stone “art deco” design embedded right there in the resin.

(As an aside, fucking Nick, threw away the kitchen stink stopper I bought that is impregnated with lemon freshness and put in his own really annoying, because it gets caked with garbage, screen strainer. Who the fuck thinks it’s OK to muck about with your tenants’ shit and throw stuff away to introduce your own aesthetic? Fucking Nick.)

The hat and table would have made the trip success enough. But, we also came home laden with mops and brooms and assorted other bargains. And, M. bought the newly released on DVD Alexander for the bargain price of $13. Woohoo.

(Another aside, M. likes them big costume-y spectacles. I, on the other hand, found Alexander to be a great big pile of shit. Seriously, has Oliver Stone become brain injured? There’s crap in there that people thought was hokey when I took a high-school film-making class with Super 8 movies. (Blood, dying, blood, right snap that red filter on the camera, stat.) It was probably distracting for M. that I kept checking his manhood to comfort myself with no reaction during the completely homo-erotic scenes (which were basically as ridiculous plot-wise as gay porn).

Wal-Mart rules.