Blueberry Pancake Sausages

I am fascinated by American consumerism. Especially when I find myself hugging the boarder between Lumpkin and Dawson County, Georgia.

Here, like many small, rural, American towns, urban growth is largely dominated by grocery stores, outlet malls, and pocketed centers of fast food services. In recent years, Lumpkin and Dawson County have been subject to this wildfire spread of Krogers, Targets, and the like, but one especially influential addition has been the Super Walmart. The United States is home to 2,447 of these "supercentres," which provide the provisional goods that a regular Walmart would, along with a full-service "supermarket," garden center, pharmacy-- even a pet shop.

The Lumpkin County Super Walmart is a spectacle. It's the colorful uncle of Target, the circus-bound cousin of Trader Joes, and a freakshow of both products and consumers.

The few times a year I find myself in this pocket of the South, the Lumpkin Supercentre has my special attention (mostly because it's the only available option for an outing into the "city"). A monolithic structure of cheap thrills, the Walmart takes up well over 10, 000 square feet and is surrounded by a desert of concrete, with shopping carts for tumble weeds. One enters to an array of smells, immediately posing the question: is it the vegetable aisle or perfume counter that I desire most? Instead of being alluring, however, this battle of scents merely produces a heavy mix of smells neither inviting for taste nor application.

I usually find myself strolling through the aisles of the "grocery-centre," as it produces amazement most readily.

I am astounded, flabbergasted, and appalled by the selection. There are rows dedicated to mayonnaise (even that of the bacon kind), cheese balls covered in mustard-laden-meat, and everything that can imaginably be pickled. There are even sections dedicated to particular meal times. Breakfast seems to hold the most interesting specimens, with Jimmy Dean heralding the movement for a more quick-ready-weird morning. According to Mr. Dean, we should own neither pans nor oven tops. Breakfast is not a meal to be prepared, but one that comes in bowls, skillets, and patties. Almost everything is pre-made, including omelets and bowls stuffed with eggs, cheese and sausage. Jimmy has even eliminated the steps involved in combining your favorite breakfast foods, such as pancakes and sausages. This Frankensteinian corn dog was what frightened me the most, as I wondered if Walmart shoppers really did consume such "foods."

However, answers didn't need to be sought very far-- they were right in front of me!

The Lumpkin Supercentre is a mirco-culture of every Southern American stereotype in existence. There are morbidly obese couples, families of 10, missing teeth, full denim outfits, and more varieties of overalls than I knew existed. And, scanning each consumers' grocery carts, there lay some edible alien of a food product that couldn't help but astonish.
Well, at least from my perspective.

Is it wrong that I take pleasure in people watching? Scanning abnormal variety with disgust? Privately mocking good 'ole folks, in the store they can best afford? Probably, yes.

But, hey. I'm from here.
Technically, I'm allowed to be a little critical of my own kith 'n kin.

(But Yankees sure as hell 'ain't).