April 19th, 2010

WOULD YOU LIKE PAPER OR PLASTIC WITH YOUR GUILT TRIP?

Few formerly simple things have become as needlessly difficult as a trip to the grocery store.

Difficult isn’t the word; painful, unpleasant, intrusive. Those are much better adjectives to describe the foreboding most of us feel within our loins anytime we anticipate a trip that used to be so simple, even in some cases joyful.

Grocery stores are the new airlines; they have you by the short and curlies as their prisoner and there’s nothing you can do about it and they know it. A decade ago it was the airlines who customer-serviced themselves to the brink of extinction by treating their customers with complete disdain and apathy, while all the while taking them completely for granted. Their theory was that America had to fly and would take whatever pitiful service and outrageous fee was thrown at them. Today, in a nation of video conferencing and “stay-cations” half of those airlines have gone out of business or been bought-out, while the rest find it impossible to make a profit. Fewer planes are in the air, government regulations are in place to force airlines to treat their passengers like life forms and the airlines haven’t learned a damn thing; they continue with the outrageous fees and miserable service despite their march towards liquidation. The future remains smaller, private travel…the airline industry is as antiquated as the radio industry and as ignorantly unaware of its inevitable demise so trust me, I know what I am talking about.

The next group of pros that need to wise up run our grocery stores. The internet has made almost every single form of outside-of-your-home shopping optional, with the one major exception being groceries. While many stores have tried launching programs in various cities inviting customers to shop online for their groceries and have them delivered to the house, it has not caught on; in some cases it simply wasn’t financially manageable for the stores or the customers, but I have another theory why internet grocery shopping didn’t work the first time (but will the next time).

Going to the grocery store, as silly as this may sound, is an insanely iconic American tradition rooted in our childhood memories for generation after generation. Nowhere else in the world do they treat food and its’ purchasing of it in the manner that we do. In fact, if you want to have a little fun bring a foreigner to an American grocery store. Any foreigner will do, but for the most dramatic reaction try to make it a native of the poorest, most dirty country you can think of, like for example, Canada.

Foreigners who visit American grocery stores are stunned, amazed and appalled all at once. They cannot believe the aisles and aisles of choice, selection, quality and calm. In many nations, they run over each other with boulders to get their next meal, yet here we are spending 20 minutes comparing the ingredients of Rice-A-Roni with those of Noodle-Roni. (Always go with rice-a-roni…don’t mess with a classic).

Almost every single one of us in America has walked into a grocery store in our lives more often than any other type of building, except our residence. We go the grocery store more often than the DMV, hospital, library, book store, mall, salon, auto repair shop, pet store and dry cleaners combined. It’s an American institution that is the social form of comfort food. Some people waste away 15 minutes in a grocery store, meandering through aisles not because they need something, but just because they crave the comfort of the surroundings, knowing that all is right in the world as long as a fresh baked loaf of sourdough will be announced daily at 4pm.

The pleasure that was has faded away.

It’s been a slow coming train, but it’s been coming for years. The wizards of smart have slowly invaded our grocery store shopping experience over the past decade and have taken it from a serene pleasant memory to an act of dread. What used to be the one chore on your list you looked forward to is now a royal pain in the ass.

It began years ago with the questions. “Paper or plastic?” Who fucking cares, was the initial response. Then, once we all realized how easy plastic bags were to carry, we went with those until we were told we were destroying the earth, so now we have to decide between not just paper or plastic, but also re-usable bags filled with fecal matter, cardboard boxes made of recycled seal pelts, or having our groceries sewn into the stomach of a camel which will deliver them to us personally. Take the camel.

Once they had roped us in with “paper or plastic,” the questions never ended:

- “Did you find everything you wanted?” This is not an appropriate question for the checkout line because if the answer is “no,” it then holds up everyone behind that customer while the pre-pubescent bag boy is sent on a scavenger hunt.

- “Would you like some stamps today?” No, but I would like a large man in brown shorts to deliver my groceries to my home. Why don’t you offer that?

- “Do you need ice today?” Ice? Why would I need ice? I own a refrigerator that makes ice…or trays that I put water in and then freeze, thus making ice. Additionally, I am buying hot dogs and buns, why the fuck would I want ice? Porkcicles?

- “Do you want cash back today?” Yes, but please don’t take it out of my account, just give it to me and no one will get hurt.

- “Do you have your club card?” Why? Am I at Costco? Why do I need to be a member of this grocery store to get the discounts I get at your competitor just for walking in? And why do you want to force me to carry yet another piece of plastic in my wallet? Don’t you know plastic is killing dolphins?

The questions are nauseating and never-ending, but admittedly, they are manageable…at least they have been up until recently. The grocery stores have taken their shopping experience to a new low by instituting the guilt trip into the check-out line…nothing says customer service like shaming your customers at the point of purchase.

I am all for charitable giving. I have been fortunate enough in my life to raise and give literally millions of dollars in my adult life to many worthy ventures. From the Leukemia society to Ronald McDonald House to the Wounded Warrior Program and local law enforcement K-9 organizations, there is no shortage of wonderful organizations doing amazing work that I feel are deserving of my time and money.

But please don’t have the gall to ask me, as I stand there at the grocery store cash register, whether or not I want to donate an additional portion of my purchase to the “charity-of-the-day” at your stupid store.

How dare you? What could be more humiliating and shameful than asking someone who has just spent money at your establishment, in a very public setting, with other customers and employees standing within earshot, whether or not I am willing to give my hard earned money away?

I have gotten into the habit of very loudly saying “absolutely not,” even if it’s a charity I love and do donate to on a regular basis.

Next time I am going to donate one penny and see the reaction I get.

This is an appalling level of intrusiveness that is unforgiveable, especially for most of America, who simply can’t give right now. At least I can leave the store without giving, but knowing that I do all that I can to help as many that I can. Most Americans aren’t in the position to help others right now and the last thing they need is to be reminded of it at the grocery store. Guilt has no place at a grocery store…guilt is why God invented marriage.

I don’t blame the charities; they just want the money and they’re just being creative and aggressive. I blame the grocery stores. If the grocery stores actually cared, they would simply give a portion of their profits quietly to the charity and be done with it; or they would create a program where they would match, dollar for dollar, what their customers gave, which would at least be a way to motivate a guy like me to give since I knew I was doubling my money to the organization. Instead, these stores just offer to verbally rape their customers. How giving.

So they have done it; they have ruined, to a level that is beyond acceptable, the American grocery store experience. Now that the enjoyment of actually going into the store has been taken away from us, we just need someone to invent a way that we could get all that we need without actually having to leave our homes. I think I’ll start by planting a garden. Does anyone have seeds to grow cereal?