When we were kids, everytime someone said “Wal-Mart,” it was obligatory for the listener to say “Fall Apart” immediately afterwards. It was one of those bizarre, linguistic games that only kids and Swedes can get away with. (Someday I’ll tell the tale of Morgan, the liguistical Swede….)

Now when I think about such games, it seems like an attempt to work some word magic, like when repeating a word with a “shm” prefix: happy shmappy. Love shmove. Job shmob. You are eroding the power of a word by SHMessing it up, SHMucking it up to where it no longer holds sway over your life.

After shopping at Wal-Mart last night with the great unwashed masses of South Dallas (of which I belong, at least geographically), I pray this meager magic eventually works: Wal-Mart Fall Apart!