I went shopping at the Wal-Mart last night in Alpharetta to get a few things and I was surprised to see how empty the store was.  There were no crowds on every aisle as usual.  In fact I thought it was Cinco de Mayo, but even the restaurants around the store were not packed.  When we went to check out another unusual thing happened, I noticed was that no one was at any of the check outs.  In fact the cashiers had walked to the front of their lanes to ask if I was checking out.  I am used to always getting in a line at Wal-Mart, so this was an oddity.  As I left the store the greeter advised me that the store was no longer open 24 hours.  A sign of the times, and the direct result of high gas prices eroding disposable income. 

When you think about it is kind of scary.  Wal-Mart is a big store with loads of perishables - they are now shutting the store for a third of the normal operating hours.  The shoppers are just not out there no matter how cheap Wal-Mart prices are.  Recently I noticed that a lot of the restaurants that I've dined at over the years have closed.  Weekdays, at lunch hour there are fewer lines in most of the local eateries.  Eating out is now a treat, and persons seem to treat themselves on a Friday evening or a Saturday.  Eating lunch out seems to have been curtailed during the week. I guess folks are back to brown bagging.  I'm sure this is not a great time to be in the restaurant business with rising food costs. A few years ago it was very common in Atlanta to buy gas for less than a dollar a gallon.  The Atlanta area at that time boasted itself as the place where dining out was a way of life.  More people dined out than any place in the country.  Those days are long gone.