I have an exclamation to make, and it's very controversial, particularly among my liberal friends, but I think it really needs to said, and said loud and clear:

Yay for rich people.

Yay, I say. And here's why: if it weren't for rich people, there would be no designer clothing stores. And if there were no designer clothing stores, there would be no designer clothing store clearance racks. And if there were no designer clothing store clearance racks, I would have to buy everything I own at Walmart. And when I buy things at Walmart, I have to come in contact with a class of humanity that makes me wish to light myself on fire, if only to cleanse off the patina of absolute nastiness that the customers there seem to exude.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not saying that poor people are nasty. I have met a number of people who don't have a lot of money, and yet are actually hard workers, who wash themselves at LEAST once per day, and who in many cases are quite smart and educated. The average Walmart customer, however, isn't like this. In the interest of hyperbole, let's do a quick comparison between the average Walmart shopper and, say, a customer at Harrod's in London:

	Harrodite	Walmartian
Investments:	Maintains a wildly successful portfolio of municipal bonds and mutual funds.	Owns a trailer, a 91 Chevy Beretta, and 37 collectible "Days of Our Lives" figurines.
Couture:	Tends towards the conservative, including fashionable suits and casual wear; never wears white shoes after Labor Day.	Has a sleeveless tank top for every day of the month, and a pair of Wrangler jeans he bought in 1987.
Hairstyle:	Varies, but usually pays between $30-200 for a cut and highlights.	Mullet, probably cut with a flowbie.
Vacation plans:	St. Croix or Florence.	Dollywood.
Knows how to operate a shopping cart without blocking an entire aisle:	Yes.	No. Hells no.

Every month or so, I say to Sarah, "Hey, let's run to Walmart, get some stuff!" So we do. And 30 minutes later, I'll be stomping out of the store, muttering incoherently, having purchased a jug of milk and two packs of Chiclets, vowing never to return. It is a rare occurrence when I can find an article of clothing there that doesn't look like something I'd wear to a golden shower party, and yet every few months, I'll simply forget, and meander over to see what they've got. And inevitably I come within two snapped synapses of poking out the eyeball of some stupid fat woman with eleventeen small children who has decided that, in order for her to examine the enormous bag of pork rinds (as if the nutritional content of it actually concerned her), she has to park herself and her car completely perpendicular to the flow of the aisle she's in, forcing other customers to either try and squeeze by her enormous bulk, or go around her via another aisle, which has the inevitable result that she throws the pork rinds into her cart or onto the floor and hustles around so she can block that aisle too. (I mean, seriously. People that have absolutely no concern for the other people around them should be chained to the back of a circus elephant or something, right?)

Then I'll go to the mall, and wander into Banana Republic. BR is always nice because they rarely have more than 2 other customers, because no one in their right mind would pay $175 for a pair of jeans. I have no idea how they make their money. (I think they've got some kind of protection racket set up with Ambercrombie and Fitch, wherein if they are having trouble paying the rent, they just grab people from the mall, drag them into A&F, and threaten not to let them leave the eardrum-rupturing store until they promise to come over to the Republic and buy a $380 linen blazer.) Anyway, I go straight to the clearance rack, where you can find nice designer shirts for under $25.

So thank you, rich elitist snobs, for making it possible for me to avoid serious prison time for going upside a fat man's head with a display shelf bracket.