By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff writer
I am not one who thinks chain stores can solve all problems.
I fully realize the Monolithic-marts carry everything anyone could ever need, and cheaper, too. I realize Super-Stores hire lots of people, draw customers from all over the place, and help landowners do something more profitable than farm perfectly good dirt that was, in the eyes of tax assessors and developers, sitting there going to waste.
But if I can help it, I don’t go to the Biggest-Store-In-the-Universe places. There are, I admit, a few things I have but little choice than to buy from a big box. Oftentimes I find nice people working in a monster store, but all too often, the help is as bland as the institutional paint on the walls. Two exceptions to that rule are the lady who helps me with my cell phone and Miss Ruby at Tractor Supply in Whiteville. I think the world of both of them.
I remember throwing up my hands in frustration not once, not twice, but three times visiting one mega-store. In each case, a very earnest young man or woman either had no idea what I was talking about, had no idea where to find one, or had no idea what one did with such things. I wasn’t looking for alabaster door hardware, a cross-peen hammer, or five-strike roofing nails.
On one occasion, three of those earnest youngsters set off a smoke alarm trying to cut a 20-foot length of hemp rope for me. I taught them that you can burn modern nylon rope, but burning hemp or jute draws funny looks and suspicious sniffs from narcotics officers. The little hot wire cutter they were using just wouldn’t, pardon the pun, cut it.
A pocketknife proved much better for that task, although the junior assistant manager got rather huffy when I whipped out my knife and slashed through the rope. You see, none of the kids working in this hardware and lumber store carried pocketknives.
Hence, I try to avoid those big box places where you can build a house and equip it in one trip. They are good for many purposes, and I’ll admit, you can find some good deals, but I’d rather walk into a store where the clerk will point you past the rat poison to a place on the left past the shotgun shells.
At the hardware store I frequent the most, Miss Toni expects regular customers to find what we need without someone in a polyester vest to help. Buddy, her husband, swears sometimes he doesn’t know where things are.
Still, if you truly need help, she comes a’running, finds what you’re looking for, and heads back up front. Miss Toni has never, ever tried to sell me something else to go along with my purchase.
She knows that if her customers are after something, that’s what they want, and she doesn’t need to convince them to buy something else. She will, however, make sure they don’t forget the things they need, be it PVC cement or lock washers.
Family-owned clothing stores are somewhat like that. At one particular one I go to on occasion, people call me by name. They know my sizes, despite the fact I haven’t bought much there. Try that in a cookie-cutter store with plastic coat hangers.
I have regularly berated fast food chain stores; not only are they generally neither fast nor food (there are a few exceptions), a plastic burger delivered by an automaton is nothing compared to a real, juicy hamburger made the way the cook knows you like it, without having to ask. Find me a paper-wrapped sandwich that will be delivered by a half-clerk, half-waitress who asks about your family.
Or the feed store, for another good example. I’m sure I’d have to wait for someone to load my hog, dog, chicken and duck feed if I went to a chain store where people didn’t know me.
As it is, Brother Robbie and Brother Chris showed me where what is a long time ago, and Miss Helen almost expects me to fill my own order, wheel it out to the truck, then stop to visit before I go. If that lets Robbie and Chris help a customer who truly needs help, then we’re all happy.
So say what you like about homegrown businesses; the people behind those counters are my friends. They are the ones who built the communities, the ones who were there to help when times were bad, there to share when times were good, and the ones who know the difference between a fence staple and a paper clip.
They are the ones who took the risks and started a small business, or inherited a small business built up by hard-working, hard-praying parents who didn’t argue or whine when things didn’t go their way.
They are the ones who built the downtowns and the country crossroads, the ones who are now struggling to adapt to a society that values cheap import trash.
But the companies I like best are the ones where the floors creak, the windows are sometimes dusty, and some of the merchandise is worthy of a museum.
Those are the companies being strangled by the chains, and as far as I’m concerned, we should be ashamed of ourselves every time we have a choice between a Megalith-Mart and trading with our neighbors.
The big stores often eat the little ones, or make what was a comfortable living into a hand-to-mouth existence. The big stores always win, you know.
But when the big shell buildings are empty and the neon’s turned off, remember what the sign in one closed-up store said: “People of quality know where to find quality.”
Usually they go just down the road – to a place where people know the difference between a hog ring, a toilet bowl seal, and what it takes to have a hometown business in a pre-fab big box world.
