I hate this grocery store.I hate the produce section. "Fresh" vegetables are brown and sopping in sprinkler water. Fruit is impossibly unripe or mealy and spoiled. Nothing arrives in season except iceberg lettuce, which, apparently, is always in season.I hate the meat section. Everything is overpriced to make an 8 percent discount seem like a deal. Everything with an 8 percent discount is two days expired. And every pork and chicken product is "enhanced" with up to 15 percent broth.I hate the dairy case. A great refrigerated wall of bluish skim milk, marked down once a month, precisely out of schedule with my consumption. Cream and buttermilk that curdle within a 10-minute car ride. Two brands of butter for the discerning shopper.I hate the worthless "preferred shopper" card and the "discounts" it provides, in exchange for a record of my personal information and weekly shopping habits. I hate, even more, the "Everyday Low Price" tags that look suspiciously similar to the preferred-shopper discount tags. I hate that this trick actually works.I hate the dirty, disturbingly moist shopping carts. I hate the perpetual oily scum on every shelf. I hate the sullen cashiers and AWOL baggers. And I hate the customers. The ungodly horde of customers, pushing and crushing into every lane and aisle. A surging tide of unwashed, sweat-pant-clad humanity.Why are there so many people in this grocery store, anyway? Oh, right. The same reason I'm in this grocery store.It's the only one we've got.Apparently, I'm not alone in my loathing of the local grocery chain. A recent IBM study revealed that 73 percent of shoppers have no loyalty to, or feel "antagonistic" toward, their supermarket.But that doesn't keep us from shopping there, because it's basically the only game in town. Over the course of a few decades, shoppers sacrificed their overall shopping experience for a discount card and beautiful iceberg lettuce. And in the process, every other grocer collapsed.Now the only choice we get is between the "nearby" chain grocery store and the "nice" chain grocery store. Which is the same chain grocery store, but with slightly more attention to hygiene.Though there are other choices. I'll hit the local public market when I have a leisurely weekend morning to kill. I'll drive out to the city's consumption nexus to visit the organic chain when I have an afternoon to spend in my car. But for everyday shopping? For the milk, bread, toilet paper and cat food that get a columnist through the week? Sometimes sacrifices must be made.That, arguably, is the worst part. Knowing that as awful as it gets (and it gets more awful with every visit), I'll continue shopping. And knowing that my continued shopping keeps the chain running, 24 soul-crushing hours a day.So yes, I'm antagonistic. I'm antagonistic toward the grunge and grime. I'm antagonistic toward the dented, botulized and mis-shelved cans and the water-injected meat. I'm antagonistic toward the insult and ignominy of the entire experience.But as my "preferred shopper" card can attest, I'm not doing much to help the situation.(Ben Grabow writes for the young, the urban and the easily amused. Contact him at thinlyread(at)gmail.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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