Columnist Susan Snyder: Taking a Wal-Mart inventory

Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2002 | 8:18 a.m.

Well, at least they didn't create "a fuss."

Yet.

Judging by the applause that erupted in the Las Vegas City Council meeting last week when an attorney representing Wal-Mart withdrew the company's proposal to build a big, box store in Summerlin, there would have been a big one.

Proponents now must wait a year to ask council members for approval to build at Hualapai Way and Sahara Avenue -- if they intend to build something similar.

Wal-Mart's late founder, Sam Walton, must be smiling from down -- er, from up above. According to an excerpt from his autobiography, Walton once said, "If some community, for whatever reason, doesn't want us in there, we aren't interested in going in and creating a fuss."

As a resident of Summerlin's Willows (one of the neighborhoods on the proposed site's borders, where the houses look so much alike I keep trying to park in the neighbor's driveway), I can only say I wish I'd known more about the proposal.

Was there going to be a Starbucks? We only have about 10 in a three-mile area out there. Was there going to be enough parking so Summerlin residents would continue to drive half a mile to the store in their neighborhoods built for all that walking and bicycling they say they're enjoying?

Not that I'm trying to make a fuss.

"Knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

"Interrupting cow."

Nevermind. Really bad joke.

A better joke is that the Cow Parade, which opens Oct. 17, is inspiring otherwise perfectly dignified adults to publicly say, "It's cow-abunga time in Las Vegas," and that marketing people are getting paid to write that stuff for them.

The 100-pound, fiberglass bovines are painted by local artists and sponsored by local businesses or residents. The cows are to be displayed in public places throughout the valley through February, then they will be auctioned off. The money is to benefit the Andrew Agassi Foundation.

Maybe they can display a few up on Hualapai Way. I hear there's a big open space out there.

And just when it didn't seem possible that the "best" lists could become any worse, a sweepstakes sponsored by a company that makes pain relievers for urinary tract infection sufferers has released a list of the 10 best places to take a whiz in Las Vegas.

It seems the contest, which garnered 17,000 votes nationally, was launched to "create awareness and educate women on the risks of retaining urine for long periods of time."

According to the drug company's survey, more than 70 percent of women will not go to the bathroom if they are too busy or unless they can find one that's clean and safe.

Actually, it depends more on whether you have someone to gossip with when you go, and whether you've remembered to carry your lipstick.

Evidently, the distance to the ladies' room was not taken into account. Las Vegas' top four pee-pee places are The Rio, New York-New York, Mandalay Bay and Bellagio.

Walking to the bathroom in one of the mega-casinos is like walking to Boulder City with air conditioning.

Oh, thank heaven for 7-Eleven.