I, For One, Welcome Our Chain-Store Overlords!

According to the local paper, it's looking like Socorro (population ~9,000, including yours truly), will become home to a Wal-Mart superstore some time in the next couple of years. I understand the traditional response to this kind of news is to scream and protest. "Big chain stores ruin small town living!" or something like that. But my own reaction is much more akin to "Hallelujah! About damn time!" OK, yeah, I might be worried that Wally-World will hurt the small businesses, if there was all that much in the way of small business to worry about here. But, from the consumer's point of view, at least, there just ain't. Unless whatever item you're looking for can be found at one of the hardware stores, the office supply store, or among the extremely limited selection of the one low-end discount-type store we do have (itself a fairly recent development), you're pretty much S.O.L. when it comes to shopping in Socorro. Meaning everybody already goes to Wal-Mart when they've got any major shopping to do. They go to the Wal-Mart in Belen, a 90-mile round trip that's inconvenient, time-consuming, and quarter-of-a-tank-of-gas expensive. Might as well have the damned thing here and let the town benefit from the tax income and the employment opportunities, I say.