Never Give Up

For the past two years, I’ve boycotted Wal-Mart.  If you’ve paid attention to everything they’ve done, you already know why.  If you haven’t, wake up!

Since I started my boycott, I’ve been trying to convince my mother to join me.  But those low, low prices continued to seduce her, despite my continual explanations about how those obscene prices affected the local economy, which in turn affects us; about how Wal-Mart employees had little-to-no benefits; how Wal-Mart would crush any attempts they made to form a union.  The list goes on and on.

I can understand how important saving money is.  Every penny counts.  But sometimes saving money comes at a greater cost, and this is one of them.  Yet I could not convince my mother that the price she paid was greater than just the money coming out of her bank account.

Yesterday, my mother saw Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person” award go to Wal-Mart for suing a now ex-employee who’d been so severely injured in an accident that she [the employee] can’t remember that her son was killed in Iraq.  She can’t remember that, so she keeps asking about him, and she keeps having to relive learning that her son is dead.  Wal-Mart sued her for $470,000 to recover their costs for providing her medical care because it’s one of the clauses in the employee contract.  She only had $417,000 in a trust fund.  Wal-Mart sued her for everything she had, and they won.

Today, my mother told me she won’t go to Wal-Mart anymore.  She’s going to drop her Sam’s Club membership.  She told me this story is what finally did it for her.

It makes me think: never give up.  You never know what straw will be the last.