A word about strip malls...

I've never been a big fan of the "strip mall." This probably has something to do with growing up in a small town in the northeast where most stores were mom and pop shops, and our Main Street is as quaint as they come. You know, the kind of place where everybody knows your name. Just imagine a Norman Rockwell painting: that's New Canaan. I grew up in a picturesque town, and that's what I like. There is something so mundane, so common, so uninteresting about strip malls. They are all the same: fast-food, a dry-cleaners, walmart, etc. etc. Imagine my dismay when the decision was made for our family to move to none other than strip mall HEAVEN. That's all they have here in Arizona, strip mall after strip mall after strip mall. The first week or so it was physcially painful for me as I drove around from strip mall to strip mall doing my errands. That is until I discovered my local Walmart SUPERCENTER. This is not just any Walmart, no, it is even bigger then a Superwalmart. This place is like a small city inside four walls. Where else on earth can you do all of the following under one roof: buy food for your family, purchase clothing shoes underwear diapers and socks, grab a bite to eat at Subway, mail off packages and letters at the US postal service kiosk, have your hair colored and cut at the salon, have your family photos done, get a manicure, have your car tires rotated and the oil changed, purchase grass for your yard, have your eyes checked and glasses made, and purchase Halloween costumes for the entire family?? And those are only the things I have discovered! I have yet to make it around the entire store. I might be able to get used to Arizona after all.