After a Fashion

WAL-MARTIANS It is simply un-American to pay full retail for anything. Wait a few minutes, or go next door, and you'll find the very same item on sale. Or go to some place like Wal-Mart, Kmart, or Target, and the prices may change before your very eyes -- cheap, cheaper, cheapest; 20% off the last marked price. And those superstore places that have groceries, too? Why, just sidle up to the trough, there's no reason to go home. If it's a 24-hour store, you could practically just live there, moving from department to department, and most of the blank-faced clerks would just think you were a very regular customer.

I first became aware of Wal-Mart whilst traveling from Seattle to Austin. We didn't have that sort of thing in Seattle. Sure, we had Kmarts ... nothing alluring about that; I already been there. Then a Target sprang up way on the south side of town and I promised to get down there and scope it out, but that never happened. So, as we passed from Washington into Oregon, Wal-Marts started sprouting up, sometimes without even a town around them. Naturally I'd heard of Wal-Mart, and was thrilled with the opportunity to shop in one. I went berserk. They had all the cheap, one-season-only kinds of things at exactly the prices that I wanted to pay for those items.

Furthermore, with modern technology and communication, manufacturers of good quality, original merchandise can be copied for the mass market and often beaten to the stores with their own designs. Therefore, when Pottery Barn (the Gap of home decor) decrees that all household accessories will be periwinkle and pea green, Wal-Mart will have it just as quickly and in every conceivable product. And for less. Just ask Kmart: Their acquiring of stylemaker-to-the-masses Martha Stewart to avail themselves of some badly needed cachet has reportedly improved their bottom line. So who cares where you bought it anyway? Style has nothing to do with where something was purchased.

THE BLIGHT CONTINUES There is a special place in Hell, all warm and toasty, that waits for the folks that came up with the hideous advertising that covers every inch of the Capital Metro buses (except for the windshield). Looking horrible on the outside, like huge, garish rolling billboards, it makes the inside of the bus feel like a cage, allowing only pinpoints of viewing through a network of tiny holes. The overall effect is that of riding a bus that will eventually deliver you to prison. On the back of the bus, it's hard to see the yield and warning signs because they are so obscured by advertising. One recently released guide to Austin even discourages visitors from riding the bus, since the advertising on the outside obscures the view from the inside, and not only do they not see the scenery, they can't even see the street signs to tell where they are. And nighttime? Forget it. Sit at the front so you can look out the windshield.

In theory, advertising is supposed to acquaint the consumer with a product, but I doubt anyone really remembers what the campaigns are even for when they are smeared all over these buses -- just the visual assault. It might even be bearable if the income from this appalling campaign was making obvious improvements to Cap Metro's service, but that does not seem to be the case. One improvement suggestion might be classes for the large number of Cap Metro drivers who seem to lack the basic skills of politeness. This is not to say all the drivers are rude, but enough that a little undercover detective work would uncover a slew of offenders that make riding a Cap Metro bus even more unpleasant. Recent experiences have included a driver shrugging his shoulders in helplessness as the bus flew right past the stop that I was at. I could only presume he was trying to explain to me in his own little way that the brakes had failed and he was unable to stop. Another experience included a driver so captivated by a female rider's attention that other passengers pointed out that he passed up a person waiting at a stop, and he pulled over a block away so the rider could hotfoot it to the bus. As noted, not all drivers are unpleasant. I have been treated decently and even extremely pleasantly most of the time. There is, for instance, a driver on one route who has clearly missed his calling as an entertainer. His announcements of time points and landmarks in an array of clever voices are entertaining and make an otherwise unpleasant trip a memorable and amusing experience. Even if you can't see the things he's talking about.

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