Baby I like it big…

As I sit in front of a building that looks like a cross between El Cabello Blanco crossed with COSTCO (I imagine the horses in ragalia about to trott past) it amazes me how everything here in the United States is BIG. 

Cars, food portions, malls, food portions, trucks, food portions… You name it, it’s big.

Just step into any place with a “Pharmacy” sign out the front.  I think the sign should read “Understatement” because walking in you get a whole lot more than a Pharmacy. 

Try… a liquor store, medical centre, food store, Starbucks, one hour photo, post office, internet café oh yeah don't forget the actual pharmacy.  All important items one could possibly need in an average day… booze, drugs, food, snap happy camera opportunities, coffee and an internet connection so you can upload continuous Facebook status’s.  One stop shop I would say. 

In Oshawa, a town of 150,000 people 70km East of Toronto (where my family live), around almost every single corner there was a huge shopping centre like this.  Not a Westfield kind of shopping centre, but more like a massive home decorator centre or IT village on steroids.  Think Radio Shack, Priceline, or your local Coles supermarket but times 100 and add another 10 or so businesses.  Just seriously massive stores.  It boggles my mind wondering how any of these centres survive in times like these.

It is very lucky that I am not living in the States...yet.  This type of centre should really be called “Spend your day here”.  With a big arched sign over a dual carriage way similar to the “Welcome to Disneyland” sign in Anaheim.  A trip to the supermarket for me is a 1.5 hour journey anyway – imagine the serious time and damage I can do in a place like this.  You wouldn’t see me for days.  

In 1997 when I was living in Canada my cousin Jen and I considered it a night out in going to “Shoppers Drug Mart”.  I used to love it.  It was a makeup, confectionery, and pharmacy paradise and an hour and half in there was though of as a short trip – and yet 16 years later these massive monuments still amaze me… cue mouth agape as if I was standing in front of the grand canyon reveling in its size and beauty. 

It makes me ask the question, do we really need everything in life to come in a supersize?  Is this the future?  Did McDonalds start this upsize craze… will Australia be next in this quest for bigness greatness?

As I look up through my windscreen pondering these thought provoking very serious life changing bigness greatness questions I am shocked to see a huge HUGE white blimp sailing across the sky advertising something as if a pretend competition for bigness was underway.

I squish my face practically to the windscreen to watch this thing sail past and think…

Yes a giant blimp may win first place in that competition today… and the competition for the biggest balls for that matter.

Did they not get the Hindenburg memo?