Free Culture War by Walter Knight Page B

contraband
skateboard distributed bore a stamp in large lettering that read,
‘MADE IN USA.’
     
    * * * * *
     
    The New Gobi City Walmart was purposely built
straddling the MDL so that both humans and spiders could shop at
the same store. The MDL was painted in red and yellow down the
middle of the highly waxed floors. The success of this business
model had been expanded to other Walmarts and businesses in the
DMZ.
    Although the spider Governor of the North
Territory tolerated trade between the North and South as a
necessary and inherent evil, he was not going to allow the infamous
annual Black Friday sale at Walmart to continue another year. Black
Friday was the day after the American Turkey Holiday & Feast
when Walmart held a huge pre-Christmas sale on all items in the
store when the doors opened at the stroke of midnight Thursday.
    Thousands of Arthropodan citizens lined up
waiting for Walmart’s doors to open. In years past, stampedes
resulted in injuries, fights, and heart attacks. Last year there
had even been a death by trampling. The governor’s problem with
Black Friday was not the good sales at an American store, or the
rowdy crowds, or even the mixing of the species at an
American-inspired event. His problem was that Arthropodans would be
Christmas shopping. It appeared to the governor that, once again,
the insidious human pestilence had manipulated Arthropodan habits
and culture with American decadence.
    If Arthropodans were shopping for Christmas,
it meant they were also celebrating Christmas, and all had been
lost. The governor was determined that the end of Arthropodan
culture on New Colorado would not happen on his watch. Nor would
the end be allowed to incubate on New Colorado and to spread to the
rest of the Empire. The governor gave the order that Black Friday
would be shut down on the Arthropodan side of Walmart.
    By Thursday night, many spiders had already
pitched tents and formed lines in the parking lot on the north side
of the New Gobi Walmart. It was a festive social event. Friends
from the outlying districts who had not seen each other since the
first of the year at Walmart greeted each other with hugs and
plotted shopping strategies. The good mood soured, however, when a
company of Arthropodan tanks, armored cars, and infantry marines
arrived and deployed between the crowd and the store.
    “ I am sorry,” announced the
spider commander on a public address system. “Access to Walmart is
closed. There will be no pre-Christmas shopping allowed at
midnight, by order of the governor. The doors will remain
locked.”
    As a precaution, the front doors were chained
and padlocked. The spider commander continued to explain to no
avail that Christmas shopping was an American trick to impose
Christmas on Arthropodan culture, and would not be allowed. The
shoppers booed and hissed and drowned out the commander’s voice. As
midnight approached, the crowd grew to thousands. They pressed in
on the company of nervous spider marines.
    At midnight, a Walmart employee and an
Arthropodan marine team leader appeared inside the store and hung
up a large ‘CLOSED’ sign on the glass doors. The crowd got louder
and more militant, throwing shopping carts and asphalt chunks from
the parking lot at the marine armor. However, after a while, the
enthusiasm of the crowd started to wane. As the spider commander
appealed to their sense of duty and patriotism, spider shoppers
started to disperse. Most spiders considered themselves to be a
law-abiding and orderly species from a law-abiding and orderly
culture. They abhorred mob rule, and a sense of relief swept over
shoppers and marines alike as the crowd started going home
peacefully.
    Then it happened. The spark needed to ignite
already frayed tempers was the sight of human pestilence shoppers
inside Walmart loading up their shopping carts with boxes of
electronic appliances and tech gear. Some Americans waved at the
spiders from behind the large plate glass doors. They