Waking Up In Wal-World - A Satire
- A Satire -Rinnnnng----Rinnnng----Rin
"Uhh, hallow."
"Good morning, Walter. This is your wake-up call. It is 6:30am in Wal-World, time zone 3. Current temperature is seasonally appropriate at a crisp 11 degrees Wal-Cius. Wal-Weather for today has been programmed to rise to a very comfortable 25 degrees W-C. Have a nice day."
Walter Wallace II, a 35 year-old Wal-Mart community planner, had received the same phone call every morning of his life since he was eight years old. That was the year, 2048, when planet Earth, as he and all other Earthlings had known it for thousands of years, became Wal-World, wholly owned by Wal-Mart.
In the 50 years prior to 2048, the world economy gradually became dominated by Wal-Mart. But it seemed that the momentum of this assimilation gained frightening velocity not long after Wal-mart was first identified as the largest corporation on the planet.
By 2030, Wal-Mart had moved its headquarters from Bentonville, Arkansas to occupy the entire lower tip of the island formerly known as Manhattan - now renamed New Wal-Town. >From its offices on Wal-Street, the company directed strategic acquisitions worldwide that would, quite literally, change the world.
The Big Move
In the summer of 2048, Walter and his family, along with everybody he knew, moved into an apartment inside a Wal-Mart. That fall, Walter and his little sister, Wilma, enrolled at the Wal-School inside their new Wal-Mart community.
Other than actually moving into a Wal-Mart, the lives of Walter's parents, Wilbur and Wanda, didn't change all that much by the move; both already worked for companies wholly owned by Wal-Mart. Wilbur was a supervisor at a Wal-Car automobile factory, formerly Honda-GM-Volkswagen, and Wanda managed the kiosks that vended Wal-Mac food.
Living inside a Wal-Mart did simplify life; most people on the planet, now called Wal-Lings, spent much of their lives there anyway. Walter remembered his dad telling him, "by the time of 'The Big Move' in '48, it was hard to tell where Wal-Mart stopped and the rest of the world started."
Wal-History
In 9th grade Wal-History class, Walter learned how the company kept building bigger facilities to house all of the acquisitions they had made, until finally, with Wal-Mart selling literally everything the world's consumers consumed, it made sense to just move everyone inside.
Coincidentally, 2048 was also the year the last remaining small business in the world closed. With everybody now living next to a Wal-Laundry, Louie's Dry Cleaning in Lansing, Michigan, finally threw in the towel when Louie could no longer use the convenience angle as a competitive advantage in his marketing effort.
By 2028, world agriculture output was controlled by Wal-Mart, which pretty much put the kibosh on restaurant and grocery competitors. Three years later Wal-Mart finished sewing up the world's garment industry, from fiber to fabric to finished goods, and then proceeded to mop up the global petroleum industry.
The year 2035 saw Wal-Mart pull off the hat trick, achieving total control over autos, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, and information/technology. The latter was made easier as a result of Microsoft being decimated by years of anti-trust lawsuits.
All that was left, after polishing off the transports, utilities, telecom, and banks over the next 5 years, was to allow the culture enough time to adjust to the concept of Wal-World. That was essentially accomplished by 2048, when Wal-Mart announced that it had acquired 98% of housing and commercial space in the developed world.
Now that Wal-Mart controlled everything, there was really no need for any of the world's currencies. It had been years since anyone had seen cash, let alone a traditional paycheck. Everything Wal-Lings needed was provided by Wal-Mart, and the value of products and services they consumed was deducted from their salary accounts, including withholding for Wal-Care, the universal healthcare system, and the Wal-Pension. Anything left over - what once had been known as "take home pay" - was deposited in a debit account accessed by a Wal-Card.
Walking to work that morning in 2075, Walter stopped at a Wal-Mac kiosk to get breakfast. As he swiped his Wal-Card to pay, a strange noise began coming out of the machine.
Eeep---Eeep---Eeep---Eeep---Eeep---Eeep---Eeep---Ee
Another Wake-Up Call
"Hummph?" Walter grunted, as he slapped the snooze button. "Wazzat? Where am I?"
"Honey, are you okay?" Walter's wife, Susan asked. "You must have had a nightmare. You've been tossing and crying out for the past hour."
"Boy - I'll say," Walter sighed, wiping the sweat from the back of his neck. "I dreamed Wal-Mart had taken over the world."
"I told you not to eat clams so close to bedtime," Susan scolded. "Now come downstairs. Breakfast is ready."
Shuffling into the kitchen, Walter sat down at the table as Susan handed him a cup of coffee and the paper. "Hurry up," she coaxed. "You've got to open the store in an hour."
"I tell you, Susan, that was the worst nightmares of my life. It was just awful. They controlled everything, even the governments."
"Who? Are you still talking about Wal-Mart?" Susan asked.
"Yes."
"I told you not to get all worked up over all the different industries Wal-Mart is getting into. We're cutting out the clams AND web surfing before bed from now on. Now read your paper and maybe that will take your mind off of it."
"She always seemed to know how to settle me down," Walter thought, as he took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. But then, opened up his paper, Walter saw this headline:
"WAL-MART BECOMES WORLD'S LARGEST CORPORATION."
Ni-Ni-Ni-Ni, Ni-Ni-Ni-Ni
As a cold chill ran down Walter's spine, the radio in his head was playing the Twilight Zone's signature music, ni-ni-ni-ni, ni-ni-ni-ni, ni-ni-ni-ni.
In his small business later that day, Walter thought about his baby boy, Wilbur, and the time-line of his dream. What will the world look like when Wilbur's son turns eight?
Walter thought about his dream of passing his small business along to his children, and vowed to do his part to fight the Big Boxes in the only way a small business can.
Talking to his employees that morning, Walter told them, "We can't win the price war with the Big Boxes. We can't win the selection war, either. But we can win the service war, and the innovation war, and the creativity war.
"Our small business is vastly more capable than any of the Big Boxes at giving customers that most valuable of commodities. Not price. Not selection. Not new and improved. We can give them time." Walter declared. "We'll give them time through innovative and creative ways of delivering our products and services. Not how much do they want to pay, but how do they want it, when do they want it, and where do they want it?"
"All we have to do is let our customers know that, when service matters, when technical information matters, when your time matters, think of us. Small businesses can do those things better than any Big Box. And then," Walter reminded his people, "we have to deliver what we promise."
Write this on a rock... Wal-World will never happen as it did in Walter's dream. But if you let the Big Boxes intimidate you and cause you to throw in the towel, or worse, get into a price war you cannot win, one day you will wake up in your own version of Wal-World. If you let that happen, you might as well go ahead and move in.
