Consumerism Kind of Sucks

Every now and then, an amazing, bizarre idea will pop into my mind. When I was thinking of WalMart, my favorite underregulated corporate giant, a funny idea came to mind. Wouldn't it just be great to pick up that red PA phone on the pole inside the store and announce something like: "Hello, and welcome to WalMart, where your overly materialistic needs will be taken care of. Buying some fish for dinner? Just make sure it gets tested for carbon monoxide poisoning! Or maybe buying that action figure your kid has been begging you for? It's a wonderful import from China that was put together by other kids his age!" I mean, really, do we really need all this stuff? If I were to keep track of all the plastic, paper, and materials that I go through every day, I'd feel a bit dizzy. It's a sad fact about our Western culture. We're too damn greedy and we want too much. And it's literally killing our environment. There was a time (well before I was born) that people actually had these magnificent things that were...hmm, what's the word...reusable. I want to go back! There's a show on tomorrow called The Human Footprint that shows exactly how much trash the average Western human produces in a lifetime. We've doomed ourselves to a society that wants everything to be cheap and convenient, no matter who else suffers from it. I'm guilty of it as much as anyone else. If we were all to give up something as simple as bottled water, think of how much plastic would be saved. I'm going to sound extremist here, but consumerism is a disease and we all need to realize there are things we don't need.