Thursday, January 12, 2006

All Lost in the Supermarket, I can no longer shop happily.

Rant ahead y'all. I hate the grocery store, here's why:

10. Everything. I hate loading up a metal cart with brightly and generously packaged kibbles, I hate the chemicals companies dump into foods to make them taste better, I hate fluorescent lights, I hate "club cards" I hate the conveyor belt and then loading the crap into my car in little bags emblazoned with another logo. I can't help but think this would all be much cheaper if I didn't have to pay for all the advertising and packaging that surrounds the whole process. I actually enjoy shopping, I just hate having my attn sought after by so many companies that I am immersed in advertising and packaging. What is the solution? Why not open markets like we used to have? Like other countries have...

9. Screaming babies/misbehaving kids. These people, I swear, they take their kids both nap and food deprived, and they take them out to the local "children's hell on earth" which is the grocery store, where they torment others with their incessant puling and whining, tantrums and other generally irritating behavior. It really makes me want to walk up and fully just SLAP the parent across the face. Ok maybe not, but really, what is it, do they want to share their misery with us? When Addy goes with me she is always 100% fed and napped and she is an angel.

edit: Now that Addy is a little older I can see the challenge of getting the groceries and what to do with the kids. I rescind this.

8. Searching for food. Logical things...why don't they put the tomato sauce next to the spaghetti sauce? Why do I have to double around trying to guess where they might keep their olives? Or why don't we put the dry beans next to the canned beans, isn't that logical?

7. Bread. The bread in the USA just sucks. Its all full of preservatives. But that's all I got to make my pb and j unless I want to go to the store every other day...no thanks!!

6. The environment. If you saw the Robin Williams movie "1 Hour Photo" perhaps you can understand...everything is white and fluorescent and packed in plastic. It's depressing.

5. Packaging. I hate it. It's a system of selling that is so incredibly wasteful, I hate it.

4. What other people feed their kids. I hate seeing the garbage folks feed their kids. I hate that sugar cereals are cheaper than healthy ones. My inner nutrition nazi comes out. I see a woman with a cart full of frozen food and cheetos and american cheese and corn dogs and--well.. this is what most people eat I suppose, and it really just sucks.

3. Everything is more expensive than it should be. One time I filled up a bag with cashews (about 1/4 way, I 'd say about a pound), and at the checkstand I discovered I had filled my bag to the tune of SEVEN BUCKS!! For flippin NUTS people!! One time I filled up a container with honey for my honey... NINE BUCKS! That was the last time my honey had honey. Today I had to pay just under THREE bucks for a puny bag of blueberries!! What the...? Ben n Jerry's which we of COURSE don't buy, is almost FOUR BUCKS for that dinky little thing! *@#*%^$#&~!

2. Selection. Ok I admit that part of the problem is in #3--I shop at the cheap grocery store, where they used to sell turbinado sugar for my blueberry muffins, but now Noooooooo. They don't even have cooking sherry. And their masala is the same as the stuff thats labeled "cooking sherry" (I read the ingredients, they're exactly the same). SO if I want GOOD groceries I have to go to Upscale Holistic Hippie Mart down the road (read: 30 minutes drive away cos there are only 2 in town) where they do sell prosciutto, chicken sausage, annatto seeds, saffron and cooking sherry and for those 5 items I get to pay 45 bucks. Thanks alot hippiemart.

1. The produce section. When did it start to be that fruit and vegetables stopped looking like fruit and vegetable and started to look like wax? I don't want my flippin apples "groomed" with shining agents and with little stickers on them. I hate those little stickers, I always eat the stupid sticker because APPLES aren't supposed to have stickers on them! I miss the produce markets in russia, where all the grammas that sold radishes lined up and all the grammas that sold apples lined up, and you picked the best from what was there. And if for some reason there wasn't much dill that day, oh well. Here, I could go to hippie mart and pay 2 dollars a pound for organic apples...I would love to, but honestly, organic prices are only for people who live on credit or have large incomes, or have no mortgage, or have 2 incomes (big ones)--not feasible on my teacher salary (I'll be glad if I can pay the 250 dollar heating bill, people). That in itself is a rant.

Agh it felt good to get that out, no WONDER I hate grocery shopping. Please don't tell me I should be thankful I have groceries, I am. Yes I know I sound like I need to seek professional help. Maybe I should take Zoloft like the rest of the world.

feh. And I'll probably have to go again next week...

3 comments:

M said...

haha!

Hells yes!

I make all my own food from scratch, and bring my own non-disposible bags to the store. I eat almost no pre-packaged food, and STILL the amount of waste we (my roommate and I) generate from packaging is unbelievable! And don't get me started on bad food... I can't believe what people do their bodies! Have you SEEN Supersize me??
I'll admit, if I'm standing in line at the grocery store and someone's buying fresh produce and brown rice and bulk tofu, I kind of sneak a look. I either think "we should be friends!" or I check for wedding rings.....

SHOP ON SISTAH!

suleyman said...

I hate the screaming babies and kids. At the local grocery store they've gotten pretty good about putting items that go together (like pb&j and bread) together in one place.

What I hate about grocery stores is how they play the most bland soft rock garbage on their intercom systems. I worked at a grocery store in high school, and let me tell you, the music got *really* old. They play the same stuff ovah and ovah again. There's a good store near where I live that plays nothing but old R&B and funk, called ACME grocers, that's where I prefer to do shopping. Unfortunately, their selection isn't as good.

-Suley

HappyChyck said...

Wow! You speak the truth! I swear the quality of our food depends on how flush our check book is on grocery day. I have many stores to choose from, but none of them make me COMPLETELY happy, so I end of going to more than one store. It's worth it to me to go to uppity whole foods store for produce that is not plastic, but it's not worth it to me to spend 3 times the price for the OTHER things that are the same but with different labels.

And that "member price" thing just cracks me up. What is the point? It really just punishes people who live out of town who have to do a little shopping. I hate to admit that recently when we were out running errands, I opted to not go to a certain store because the member card was on a different set of keys. Really bringing in my business aren't they?