And Then There Were One

I hear today that Pulte is going to buy Centex, the result of which will create the single largest home builder on the planet.

Is this good news? It appears this industry, alongside countless others, is migrating towards unity. Pretty soon there will only be one discount retailer, one automobile manufacturer, and one home builder.

So someday in the near future a young woman in Ridgeview, PA (where there's no ridge and no longer any view) buys a tract home in the new Wyld Wynd subdivision from her choice of 7 models offered by the only developer in the nation. There is no option for an 8th model -- the company has decreed you don't need that level of choice. She motors to her new housal unit in one of the diminishing brands of vehicle that survived the boardroom vote at the sole automobile manufacturer in the nation. She purchases all her durable and some non-durable consumer cyclicals at the 3,765,000 sq. ft. drive-thru repository 6.3 miles away, the only one in the town operated by the sole retailer in the nation. She's a little miffed that she couldn't purchase a quarter pound of Roquefort cheese or that she could only choose one variety, but she needs cheese so into her minivan goes the 84-oz wheel of cheddar, mild. She was able to arrange her purchases ahead of time through her new wireless Boysenberry, the only wireless provider in the nation. Her choice of ring tones are from the same collection of songs her radio station airs; you know, the same twenty three songs cycled throughout the day. But that's OK she thinks, she really enjoys artist number seventeen.

While her vehicle is paraded through the repository on the slow moving conveyor belt, she's able to hit the DVD kiosk, pick up her prescription meds, go potty, feed her toddlers a Chicken Chunks meal deal, and get her new eyeglasses ground and fitted before she exits the cavern. Life is a dream, she thinks, as the repository fades away in her rear-view mirror...