We like it when things are big. Life itself started with the Big Bang and will end with the Big Sleep. In between, we’re all trying to spin the big wheel, land the big fish, make a big splash, hit the big time, be the bigwig, drive big trucks, eat Big Macs, drink Big Gulps and laze around like the Big Lebowski at the foot of the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
It should come as no surprise that people also like their Big Box stores.
What’s there not to like? Well, there’s the generic name itself—Big Box—which is not exactly thinking outside of it as far as names go. In fact, “Big Box store” has jumped straight to the top of the list in the pantheon of all-time terrible names for retail buildings, easily beating “flea market” and just nosing out “strip mall”.
Mind you, they are big, and they are boxy, so the name is suitable enough. But these are hardly positive attributes. In fact, the only time the word “boxy” is used in a flattering manner would be when describing an actual box. Otherwise, as with clothes or cars, to be boxy is to be a drag.
But as big as these stores are, your journey to one starts in the middle of something even bigger: their parking lots. It is there, boxed in by other automobiles and farther away than you’d prefer, that your pilgrimage begins, across the pitiless asphalt, to the great retail monolith shimmering like a mirage in the distance.
But make your way to the store you must, minding the moving vehicles of other shoppers-to-be still searching for that perfect parking spot. More dangerous still are those leaving, hopped up on post-shop gluttony, eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin’.
Once you Frogger yourself across to the safety of the store, an enchantment awaits. The doors slide open, and you fall into fairy tale: “Oh Grandmother, what big carts you have!”
Grabbing one, you enter, wide eyes spying wider aisles.
You wander in wonder, you gander and tarry. All around you are shelves to the ceiling full of embiggened goods. You move on, hesitant, but rattling away in front of you like an empty school bus down a dirt road is your capacious cart, crying out for the weight of the load it was built for.
In goes kegs of ketchup, crates of eggs, sledgehammers, hammocks, generators, three-litre jugs of vanilla extract.
The cart stabilizes but now brakes like Santa’s sled. To hold back its momentum is to hold back the full might of open-throttled industry and unfettered capitalism. It also corners poorly. But you hang on for dear life and draw strength from the star-spangled idea of soon possessing all this enormity.
There are also employees (and mostly of a normal size), though one would hesitate to call them “help.” Many don’t know where anything is and have only been hired to do one specific task and their knowledge is perversely limited to only the thing they are presently doing. Jacks-of-one-trade, so just Jack.
They avoid eye-contact because they know that you think they know many things, but they know they don’t, and they know that you don’t know that and will probably expect the kind of help they can’t give. It makes for an awkward social interaction unique to these stores.
Wander around in these windowless voids long enough, though, and you’ll realize your enormo-cart is over-spilling with enormo-goods. The weight of the cart is well beyond anything you’ve carted before, and you aren’t even sure you can even fit the entire lot into your vehicle.
You summon the energy to make that final push towards and through the checkout line.
Upon leaving the store, the enchantment ends. There is mule-work to do. The cart, if unwieldly in the store, becomes a rogue berserker when pushed across the lumpy, cracked asphalt. Small dogs and children scatter. Large men brace for impact in sumo stance. Immobile seniors clasp rosaries and cast their fate to God.
If you do manage to cajole the beastly thing to wherever-it-was-you-parked-your-car and strong-arm everything in, you’ll have to navigate your way home in a vehicle that now has the maneuverability of an over-capacity party barge. You’ll also need to buy a Sea Can and build a large root cellar to store everything.
On the plus side, you could now conceivably survive a semi-apocalyptic situation for months, with the odd side-trip to Home Hardware.
D’Arcy Closs lives in Greater Sudbury. A rotating stable of community members share their thoughts on anything and everything, the only criteria being that it be thought-provoking. Got something on your mind to share with readers in Greater Sudbury? Climb aboard our Soapbox and have your say. Send material or pitches to [email protected].