Post-collapse, low trust, end of the world -- call it what you will.

But when Wal-mart is locking up $3 plastic battery acid hydrometers behind glass because theft is such a problem -- it's over. It's just over. Look at the prices on these things. They have things on the open shelves that are 10X or even 30X as expensive, and probably just as portable (read: able to be slipped in a coat pocket). So what the heck?

I can half understand the inverters being behind glass. But $4 battery cables? $3 cans of battery terminal cleaner? Not exactly expensive OR tiny. Are we literally living in a post-collapse, zero trust society now or what? Is our civilization essentially over? WTF?

Third world countries have always been like that, and, although they are not the most pleasant places to live, they have not collapsed so far. Most of them anyway.

I was shocked to see bed sheets locked up behind glass at the Walmart.  Are people stealing bedsheets?

Take a lesson from these immigrants! 

A Walmart near me locks the pregnancy and ovulation tests.

When I lived in NY, they always had these behind the counter from shortly after they became publicly available OTC.  Reason?  They were the number one most stolen medical item!  (Pregnancy tests, that is. Not ovulation.)