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(Article changed on November 26, 2012 at 13:05)
On the trail of the cryogenic frozen head of Sam Walton Lemon, I ventured to Portland's Walmart on NE 82nd Street, and opened the ice cream freezer door to insert a shop-shifted lemon, and try to disrupt Sam's mind-numbing corporate conformity. To my shock, horror, amazement, and disgust, I again came face to face with the ugliest visage ever perpetuated upon the general populace of planet earth or dark side of the moon.
Who would have thought a Walmart associate would leave Walton's frost-bitten, cryogenic-frozen face stuck to a bin of Decadent Fudge Tracks? It was unthinkable, probably inedible. Yet there was still time for technology to come to Sam's rescue and reconnect his brain to some mindless, minimum-wage, uninsured, associate on Food Stamps, to resurrect his mission to pry the last penny out of everyone's eventual, cold dead hands. He was almost there, but this time I had him.
"So, Sam," I said. "You feeling lucky, punk?"
Unfortunately, his lips were frozen together, and all he could do was blow his cigar.
"Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz-- he said.
"That's right," I said. "Last night, I went to the Walmart in Moscow, Idaho; then Pullman, Washington. They were snatching big screens off the shelves when they should have been celebrating Thanksgiving with their families, as well as your employees who had to work, thanks to you!"
"Bzzz, fzzz--
"Don't try to change the subject!" I shouted. "Today, I stopped by Hood River, Oregon's Black Friday! Not much happening. That's three Walmarts in three states! Finally, I came here to Portland Oregon to try to find protestors. I figured a green state like this, you would never show up. I figured you would be hiding in China and back-slapping the sweatshop paupers who made you rich, that you shipped all the American jobs to, thus putting your employees into virtual human bondage. But you couldn't stay away, could you?"
"Fzzz, tzzz!"
"You've seen what's going on outside, haven't you?
Sam's eyes widened. Ugly as he was, he looked like someone I had recently seen. He had really developed into an old codger.
"Bzzzzzt!"
Suddenly, a crowd of shoppers shoved me out of the way. Someone snatched Sam's head and headed to the register. He had a Decadent Fudge sticker on his skull for $3.38.
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