This weekend we replaced a ceiling fan in the downstairs living room. The old fan which was all white and had a “K-Mart” intensity light hanging from it was replaced by an all black fan with no light. It looks a lot better...it really does. We think it’s quieter as well.
For me one of the best things about this new fan is that I’m not given to listening for an announcement about the blue-light special. K-Mart really got inside my head when I was young. Right now I’m thinking about the “food” they sold. I remember the ham and cheese sandwiches that were always on display. The thing I never really questioned and would like to question here is why did it never smell like there was food anywhere near their little deli area? I can remember it smelling like, well, non-food. Bot household cleaners or compost but something completely different and, again, non-foodish. I never had a ham and cheese sandwich there. I believe my patronage of their edible offerings was limited to the popcorn which wasn’t bad but it certainly didn’t match up with the popcorn that Valu-Mart used to sell. K-Mart offered a decent slushy…I know I had a couple of those as well.
There is a K-Mart (Super K-Mart or some derivative) not far from home. I went in there a few months ago (under serious protest mind you, but that’s another story) and I find it hard to describe what I see when I go in there. The lights are bright as they can be. There definitely does seem to be something strange about K-Marts. I’ve thought about it a bunch. I can’t put my finger on it but I don’t like what I feel when I go there. When I go in there I just want to leave.
K-Mart makes me feel like the world outside its walls is not so bad. I don’t like K-Mart. I don’t even like the fact that it makes me feel like the world ain’t so bad. I never did take advantage of a blue-light special. K-Mart never really did anything for me and I guess, in turn, I never did anything for K-Mart.
We won’t really need the fan for the next several months. There will likely be rainy days this winter in which I’ll feel moved to try to count its revolutions…that’s okay with me. That new fan means there is one less thing to help remind me of K-Mart and perhaps, as I grow older, I’ll be free of any associations I can now make with K-Mart. When that day comes I know I’ll be a happier man.
