The following words, the instance I read them, caught  my attention:

“Which is more shocking: a Walmart employee driving an S-Class or the thieves dumb enough to drive it around town?”

Walmart, for whatever reason, over the years gained the persona in the small world of self-described enlightened people as a magnet that exclusively attracts those that are on the bottom end of the economic spectrum.

Such a conclusion has allowed many of the same people that also embrace the concept of a classless society to expose themselves as hypocrites when the rubber of the stolen S-Class car hits the road.

So no one starts snickering, classless doesn’t mean without class as that is rude, crass and basically  acting outside the ever shrinking boundaries of the lowest socially acceptable behavior. That is being without class.

Classless means the lack of using yardsticks such as distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network to create a social hierarchy.

Instead, people are essentially viewed through the spectrum of individual experiences and achievement and such a society. 

Words — and how they are used — in the twisted  and rule breaking Tower of Babel that the American version of English has become thanks to the unbridled pursuit of slang accelerates on social media platforms, more and more often mean different things to different people.

 This is not a digression.

Neither is the following point: The desire to be witty can often veer into being snarky.

One refers to clever and funny remarks that is essentially humor delivered  in a sharp manner.

The other is being mean, harsh, disdainful, sarcastic and demeaning — often all at once.

Professional comedians often drive to the extreme edges of both lanes.

And they do it to make a living which is making us laugh.

One could spend a lifetime debating how big the social power of humor is and its impact, but then again, a comic plying their trade is an entirely different animal than someone who is engaged in the task of trying to rely on basic information while giving it context.

And to be clear, most information packaged in words we consume is more precise when it has context.

But then there are attempts at being snarky masquerading as context.

Snarky — in today’s world where Ma Bell has been relegated to the rocking chair by  social media apps and the clickbait used by 2023 versions of vaudeville acts that don’t travel by horse from town-to-town but via high speed Internet — is a short cut.

It is a lazy — and often reckless — short cut to making a quick case upfront as to why people should continue reading or listening.

In the case of the car thefts referenced in the second paragraph of this column from a  posting on the Auto Wire website and picked up by Yahoo News, it is not just sarcastic and demeaning but also dripping with hierarchy snobbery.

And it’s not just aimed at the owner of the S-Class but all who work — and by extension all that shop — at Walmart.

A quick rundown of what happened.

*A North Carolina man, who happens to work at a Walmart, woke up one morning to find his 1999 S-Class Mercedes Benz stolen.

*He called police, did not go to work, and did not call in sick.

*His boss called him when he didn’t show up for work.

*The worker told his boss his car was stolen. She didn’t believe him because it was in the store’s parking lot.

*Then it dawned on her what likely was happening so she called the police.

*Long story short, the criminals that had stolen the S-Class Benz and who also had swiped other people’s wallets and such were shopping with their ill-gotten gains in the Walmart.

*Fayetteville police arrived and arrested the suspects when  they returned to the Benz.

Clearly, the story had legs, so to speak. It wouldn’t have been hard to fashion an opening salvo that would keep people reading.

But that wasn’t enough, apparently.

So the writer — or the “poster” in today’s vernacular — couldn’t resist being classless and promoting class prejudices.

There are 1999 used S-Class Benz vehicles out there commanding as much as $22,000. But they are the exception and also have extremely low mileage with some less than 60,000.

But there are those are under $7,000.

Those two numbers are from Carfax for vehicles in the Northern San Joaquin Valley area

You can also find a used car dealer selling one with 135,693 miles for $2,900 featuring a $51 a month payment.

That $51 a month payment is likely less than what the “poster” pays for an installment payment of a smartphone coupled with monthly service.

This assumes, of course, the Walmart worker relied on their paycheck to buy the S-Class.

The person could also be a retiree in a “second career.”

There are also other plausible explanations about the “shocking’ fact a Walmart worker drives an S-Class vehicle.

The connotation, of course, is that Walmart is ground zero for the “underclass” and the “impoverished” when it cones to working and shopping.

That must be shocking news to Wall Street types that monitor quarterly earning reports looking for signs of whether they should alter their investment strategy.

Walmart has seen an increase across all income strata in their stores when it coms to shoppers. They also noticed the least positioned are cutting back on not just discretionary spending, but spending overall.

Meanwhile, they noticed more shoppers with better incomes on the hunt in their stores for better value for their dollar.

It is why Walmart is stepping up its fashion brand offerings slowly but surely in various locations.

People with decent money dealing with inflation are looking for better prices for basic needs. If Walmart can hook them into looking through their clothing options, all the better for the bottom line of both the store and the shopper.

The inflated sense of people who believe they are in one class and the rest of us are in other classes of varying degrees of subordination was driven home 23 years ago in Saks Fifth Avenue’s Union Square store in San Francisco.

Cynthia and I were there with Danny Luna and his wife Vicky.

Danny owned Luna Painting. In the previous month, he had done overnight painting of various sections of the store and was showing off his work.

We were on the third floor when I passed a women’s raincoat for $399 that struck me as looking the same as one for $29.99 I had seen the previous week in the Manteca Mervyn’s.

I said that out loud to Vicky, not realizing I was within earshot of an elegantly dressed woman shopper.

Let me be clear. Almost anyone, compared to me, is elegantly dressed. But she was elegantly dressed as in the well-to-do fashion of the day of those well off in The City. Complete with high heels.

“That,” she said with enough emphasis where the “t” dripped long and heavy as it rolled off her tongue, “is a xxx.”

I type “xxxx” because I do not recall the mane of the brand that she referenced.

But I do remember the look she gave us.

I’m not saying it oozed contempt or even “you peasant”,  because it didn’t.

But she made it clear we were out of our element.

Who knows, she might even find someone employed at Walmart today driving what was a new S-Class back during our brief interaction at Saks Fifth Avenue 23 years ago as “shocking.”

 This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com