I have avoided Mervyn's thoughout my entire adult life. My stepmom basically lived at Mervyn's and every time she took us shopping, it was to Mervyn's. There are memories and associations there that I do not like. And that's it - that's why I've not shopped at Mervyn's.

Still, though, I'm glad to see them go away. These retailers just drive me crazy. They rape their customers with high-interest rate credit cards, luring them in with sales and other gimmicks, oftentimes preying on those who have to use their credit as a means of survival. They (like Sears) build the credit card racket into the most lucrative part of their business, but then cry and lament when bankruptcies or a downturn in the economy cause the most lucrative part of their business to drop out through the bottom of the funnel.

And the Holidays really illustrate their collective greed. Year after year, the retailers whine about lower-than-projected sales numbers the day after Thanksgiving and continue to whine about it throughout the remainder of the holiday season. And, as so often happens, they do end up with increases of several percentage points and that just gets quietly squirreled away into the banks and nothing else is said. I think the whining is a ploy to get sympathy from the working class, to encourage people who can least afford it to get out and step up to the twenty-plus percent interest rates on crap they really don't need and certainly can't afford.

You can piss and moan about WalMart and the discount retailers all you want, but they are making a good effort to provide goods and services at reasonable prices. They are large employers with loyal workforces. Yes, there probably is some Corporate rape going on, but it's not as painful in the end as that inflicted by the "glamor" or big-box stores. And true, the quality of merchanise at WalMart leaves a lot to be desired, particularly in the toy department. But at least the consumer has choices that they can afford.

In my book, Fred Meyer is the place to shop - and I try to spend as much of my discretionary income there as possible. Thus far, it's a straight-up organization, one with good moral standards and one that is friendly to charitable causes. I can say the same for Costco.

As for Mervyn's, good riddance.