The Chris Hill Festival -- The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said, to Talk of Many Things...

Ha ha, I love getting everybody all riled up. When I watch Pardon the Interruption here at home, my Mom always complains from the other room: "Those two again? All they ever do is argue." Arguments are great. If court were more like PTI, with the prosecutor taunting the defendant and making fun of the judge, I would want to be a lawyer.

But anyway, today I got to take a trip to my least favorite place on Earth: the mall. I have worn the same pair of shoes every day for the past 3 years, and for the last 2 years and 363 days the shoes have squeaked every time I take a step. So having nothing better to do, I went to the mall.

First of all, I can't understand why anyone would shop at the mall. It's a well-known fact that all stores there are overpriced. At any mall music store, for example, CDs that you can get at Best Buy across the street for $11.99 cost 18 bucks. Everyone knows this is too much. Even suckers like me who don't download music and still buy CDs would never spend that much. And they don't even make up for it in selection, since they mostly carry only the popular "top 40" artists.

But most of all, I can't figure out department stores. Back in the twenties, or whenever the first department store came about, these were a great convenience to consumers who could get all of their stuff in one place. The mall was a destination far from home where you would go maybe 2 or 3 times a year.

But nowadays in our shop-a-holic culture, we go shopping for stuff every day. Does anyone really think "well I need a pair of jeans, a rotary saw, and a washing machine, and I can only go to one store!" We would get the jeans at a clothing store that had the best selection and prices on clothes, then we would get our saw at Home Depot or Lowe's, then we would get the TV at Best Buy or Circuit City. Each of these stores, thanks to volume purchasing, can give us both the best selection and a better price than a department store.

And since everyone has a car, and there is every kind of store within 5 minutes of everywhere (even our top-of-the-mountain cabin in North Carolina), the convenience just isn't worth the lack of selection and markup anymore.

I can't see how a department store has any kind of competitive advantage anymore, and I can't figure out how any of them stay in business. I've heard that Sears' biggest income these days is from the credit card that they offer, so why not just give up the department store thing altogether? As our non-department-store generation grows older, I have a feeling they'll be forced to do just that.

Hey, nothing I love more than an argument about church-state separation. :-)
And the problem here is that the people who think department stores are a good idea are the same people who designed the most ridiculous advertised christmas gift this year: the ten-in-one Television/AM-FM Radio/Flashlight/CD Player/Lantern/Thermometer/Compass/Insect Repellent/Siren...thing. For all those times you're lost in the woods with your tv, I guess. Hey, we can't see in the dark! Get the tv! Which direction are we going? Just check the tv! We're being bitten alive by mosquitos! Where's the tv?

Chris, your history is a bit off. Department stores predate malls by at least 50 years. Macy's in New York has open at the beginning of the 20th century. Many stores that later grew into department stores first opened in the mid-18th century. Enclosed malls didn't appear until the mid-1950s, although strip malls first showed up in the '20s. The big mega-malls that we're all familiar with today are a product of the 1980s.

Also, your assertion that better selections are offered at specialty stores is not accurate. For example, Sears's Kenmore brand is the best-selling line of home appliances in the country. And Sears also offers the standard brands like GE, Whirlpool, Kitchen Aid (a Whirlpool subsidiary), and others. But because Kenmore is actually composed of appliances manufactured by companies like GE and Whirlpool, but exclusively available only at Sears, you do get some added benefit from going to Sears.

Interesting. I apparently judged Sears only by the departments I have actually shopped in. Perhaps when it is time for me to buy a washer and dryer (a time that is rapidly approaching judging by the state of disrepair that our building's units are in) I will shop there. Come to think of it, is there a washer and dryer specialty store? Why hasn't someone opened a Home Appliance superstore like they have with electronics, office supplies, and home improvement/construction items? Or have they and I'm just forgetting about them?


	The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said, to Talk of Many Things...
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