I grew up in Spring Valley, California

I could go into a long, drawn-out story about how when it came to regions of San Diego (of which Spring Valley is a part), Spring Valley was a ghetto. I could tell you a rags-to-riches story about how my family scaled mountains of ignorance and climbed sheer rock faces of indifference, but I’ll leave the mountain stories to Leni Riefenstahl. They still live there; I moved away. I love San Diego, Spring Valley was and still is a dump. Some of the cleanest places in town where the stores where people could apply for instant cash loans.

Makes me wonder why they never brought a Wal-Mart there. There are still many people in my old neighborhood who would’ve fit perfectly on the runaway viral website People of Wal-Mart. For instance, there were Marcus and Malcolm. When they were little boys, they would come over to my house to play. We played basketball, guns, hide and seek, Star Wars and sometimes explored the field behind my parents’ house. No, on second thought we never did that. That was something I did with other friends. Marcus and Malcolm were sweet kids, but I was older (maybe by 5 to 7 years) and have difficulty relating to them in the way that I did with my closest friends. I was picky, probably unfair at times, and I clung to my comfort zone like to the last parachute on the plane going down. I figured that if I stuck to my principles, the rewards would be like instant cash in the bank.

People of Wal-Mart reflects that aspect of society draws our giggles rather than our pity. Today, Marcus and Malcolm have rap sheets and many hours logged in mental health facilities. The latter was also characteristic of my next door neighbor Robert, but he was a war veteran. Marcus and Malcolm come home to visit, hold conversations with themselves for long periods of time and use their front lawn as a toilet. Wait a minute, on second thought people of Wal-Mart does not reflect Marcus and Malcolm, because its founders explicitly stated in the interview with Time magazine that their aim is not to make fun of people with disabilities. I don’t make a habit of it either; I’m simply trying to tell you in few words what my neighborhood was like. I’ll return to this later as it amuses me (the neighborhood, that is).

People of Wal-Mart is a fun web site if you enjoy Edward Hopper’s vision of America with more grease, less clothing and a perpetual middle finger. Some of them may need instant cash at times — much like you and me — but a certain point, it’s clear that they stopped caring about how the world sees them.