My mother was obsessed with big discount stores. The bigger the better. She believed that if it was bigger that somehow the prices would be better, the discounts larger, the savings greater, so she was always looking for that greatest of all discount stores. Whenever a new one would come to Wichita she was one of the first to go there. I remember in her quest for the greatest discount store she went to a new giant store called Atlantic Mills. There probably wasn’t a home office. These people were probably reselling stuff that had been stolen or taken in a successful hijacking of merchandize on a semi truck. Ok, maybe that is a stretch. I actually went to the store one day with my mother. Before we went and on the way she was espousing all of the store’s attributes. The big selection, the low prices, the large discounts and the fact that new merchandise was landing each day. I thought I was going to the second coming. We parked in the massive parking lot and went inside. Is it possible that a bunch of hoarders were the owners of Atlantic Mills? I have never seen such disarray in my life. Clothes were strewn everywhere. You had to be especially careful walking down endless aisles of shelves where stuff was on the floor and boxes were partially opened and frankly it was simply chaos. They did have a place up front where you could get a soft drink, popcorn, caramel corn and even a hot dog. I know if I was thinking of food, one of my first thoughts would immediately go to the food counter at Atlantic Mills…not!! Mixing the general disorganization and clutter of this place with the wafting odor of burnt popcorn and not quite… hot… dogs was enough for me. All I wanted to do was get out of there. None of this slowed my mother down. She was able to dig into those large tables of clothes and amazingly find treasures that only she could appreciate. I loved my mother. I respected her ability to focus in the face of a hoarder’s paradise and find and bring home her greatly discounted merchandise. She was special in so many ways. God pray that nothing needed to be returned. That would be a fool’s errand. Again, thank god that I never had to be the one to return anything to mom’s favorite discount store… Atlantic Mills. I am guessing that the only option offered by this retail giant was store credit. One of my least favorite things. I could write a lot more about my feelings on “store credit” but I will spare you today.
