Where would you go at the end of the world for discount shopping? The Super Wal-Mart, of course. Once one finds the Super Wal-Mart, located on South Duff, one will find a lot more than just a Wal-Mart. Upon walking into the store, one can only wonder if Des Moines could fit in the new Super Wal-Mart. With its hair & nail salon, McDonald’s, vision center, cyclone zone, tire center, grocery store, and countless items that nobody needs, one starts to think that this is all a city would need to live and thrive on. The layout of the Wal-Mart is quite interesting, and makes frenzy-shopping a breeze. In the front of the store, one finds all the non-Wal-Mart stores, such as the McDonalds, hair salon, and others. From there, moving back, the junk takes up about 3/4 of the store, while the groceries occupy much less, about 1/4 of the store. On the very north end of the Wal-Mart is the tire center. Also, for your convenience and confusion, there are 40 checkouts, wide isles, benches to rest weary bones, and an underpaid employee around every corner. “I felt underdressed,” said senior Ray Wolt, “I should’ve worn a jacket.” Ray saw lots of changes in the new Wal-mart, both good and bad. “The most useful item I saw was an ear cleaning kit, the most useless item was a coil of rope.” However, rolling back prices isn’t the only thing that makes up the essence of Wal-Mart. “There are lots of friendly employees there,” Wolt said, “it’s a shame they have bad benefits.” “Save Money, Live Better”, goes the Wal-Mart logo. But what does this mean to Americans? We are trading in our focus on home-grown stores in Ames for a cheaper Wal-Mart product. With 100 million customers visiting Wal-Marts throughout the nation each week, they can roll back all the prices they want and still make a decent buck. What has a lot of Wal-Mart’s profit money gone towards? More Wal-Mart. In the U.S. alone there are 971 Wal-mart discount stores, 2,447 super centers, and 132 Wal-mart neighborhood markets. Worldwide, there are 2,980 stores, located in 14 different countries outside the U.S. All in all, Wal-Mart is everywhere. “It was weird,” said senior Kevin Raab. Kevin took part in the celebration of the opening ceremony, in which the Ames High School drumline marched through the isles. Also for the opening ceremony they had a Wal-Mart employee sing the national anthem. “She seemed very nervous,” said Raab, “I felt a little embarrassed for her.” Accompanying the national anthem, a local priest gave a blessing on Wal-Mart, “Bless every man, woman, and child that enters this Wal-Mart,” he said. After the marching, listening to the national anthem, and being one of the many blessed people to enter the Wal-Mart, he was hungry. Raab ordered from McDonald’s — only to have his order McScrewed. During his meal, some Wal-Mart executives congratulated Raab, and gave him a couple of pats on the back. This only troubled Raab, “I went home and took a shower to cleanse myself of their filth.” “Super Wal-Mart is real big,” said senior Sam Vanfleet, which sums up a lot of what this article set out to say. Wal-Mart may be a big shopping center, full of cheap items that help us go through our daily routines. But before you take off on Duff to the Super Wal-Mart, first look to the smaller businesses, which depend on Ames citizens, like you. Because there will always be someone else to go to Wal-Mart.