The parking lots of the big discount stores have been getting more and more crowded since the economy went over Niagara Falls without a barrel. The people who used to shop at the high-end stores in the mall have suddenly decided that nothing could be more amusing than to start shopping with the regular folks down at the Wal-Mart and Target. Not that they need to, mind you. It’s just so much darn fun! They even make a game of it, pronouncing them both in the French way – Wal-Mahr and Tarzhay – as if they were on some wonderful vacation to an exotic foreign land where the natives wear colorful, polyester clothes and take their children shopping instead of leaving them at home with the nanny. You can almost hear them at tonight’s cocktail party.

“We just got back from Poorland, and I can’t wait to show you the pictures when they come back. The shopping is wonderful, everything is so delightfully cheap. This scarf was only $6. Can you believe that? I’m afraid to think what it would have cost in our country. I’d never been in a Wal-Mahr before, and I thought there would be open sewers running down the aisles, but it’s not like that at all. It’s like visiting a developing country without having to get on a plane. And with much better toilets. Who knew? They even have greeters. Why doesn’t Saks have a greeter? Maybe a male model or something.