What is it About the Walmart Parking Lot?

What is it about the Walmart parking lot?

I find it interesting, and curious that the only time you actually see sea gulls in the DFW metroplex is at the Walmart parking lot. They were regulars in Frisco, and now appear to like Irving as well. 

To be honest, I would maybe expect them at the Walmart in Galveston and Corpus since those actually are coastal communities. What makes a sea faring bird think life in North Central Texas with no ocean in sight is the way to go?

But, every now and then you see them hanging out at a Walmart parking lot. Of course the most obvious reason might be a plethora of McDonald's bags with left over quarter pounders and fries littering the ground. I can certainly see the appeal since I've eaten my fair share of the Golden Arches delicacies in my lifetime. 

Except, that I've never actually seen them at a Kroger's or Tom Thumb parking lot where I have also had to step over a breadcrumb or two. Perhaps it's ingrained in their DNA or maybe as a chick their mothers whisper in their ear one final word of advice. "If all else fails, Walmart is always an option." Come to think if it my mother might have whispered those same words to me!

Either way I do get a kick out of seeing them, and can't help but remember the time I fed a flock of seagulls in a parking lot along the gulf shore of Mississippi. My step-mother had informed me that they liked Doritos, and that if I would stand there and throw the chips up into the air they would circle round to eat them. 

I must admit I can't remember a time that I laughed so freely and unabounded then that day. There was something so fun about seagulls circling overhead. I've never repeated the process, and have never really been tempted to rip open a bag of Doritos in a Walmart parking lot to recreate the experience. 

You know me, and my constant need to know why. Ever since I spent a New Year's Eve in my mid-teens reading the widely popular sensation Jonathan Livingston Seagull I've had a soft spot for seagulls. Except I have no true recollection what the book was about, but to my seventeen year old mind I do remember it seemed pretty profound!