Saturday, October 18, 2008

The Wal-Mart Problem

Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE food. I want to marry it. My love for food is maybe only challenged by my love for Harry Potter and/or listening to Disturbia on the way to school. So naturally, I love the place where all food comes from: the grocery store. The average American consumer probably doesn’t enjoy going to the grocery store, but for me it is a pilgrimage to the Mecca of all things edible. There are aisles of possibility at the grocery store.
So much to my dismay, I was peer pressured into grocery shopping with my roommates at Wal-mart. I hate Wal-Mart. Besides the unusually high ceilings and the pervading sense of gray, I have strange feeling that every time I walk through those automatic doors I am contributing to some corporate conspiracy that is taking over small businesses worldwide.
Obviously, the only way to combat this spoiled shopping experience was to be decidedly grumpy the whole time. It worked for quite a while: all through the produce section (too many peaches, too little apples) and into the bread aisle (no wheat to be found). But then . . . I saw it. Post Select Cranberry Almond Crunch. The best thing that ever came in a box. There it was, the gem of all cereals, for the very low price of $2.78. Normally it was in the exorbitant range of $4.99, but, here, the miracles of capitalism brought this joy into the range of my college budget.
It was a dilemma indeed. Because I still hate Wal-mart. I do. But in that moment I had to resist the urge to run gleefully to check out with a cart full of Cranberry Almond Crunch. So, folks, we have a Wal-Mart problem. Is it cheap prices and bowls full of cereal . . . or gray, oddly echo-y, crowded, and monopolizing? The jury’s still out.

2 comments:

Goojah Mama said...

I so agree with you on the whole Wal-Mart shopping experience. But I must say that I found myself doing the very same thing last night in comparing a product that I wanted/needed to the price of said product at Wal-Mart. I left the store without, thinking that someday soon I may just be brave enough to go into the spacious building and load up on those items that sport a much more affordable price tag.

Kels H.M. said...

Chloe, you are extraordinarily awesome.I'm also a big fan of shopping and not a fan of Wally World. It is the bane of my late night existence when shopping with my father. His favored place of commercial worship is Wal-Mart. cringe.
But... but... they have Chorizo in that abominable place. & cute super cheap shoes. It's a love/hate relationship for sure.

PS- Corrie is my mother, just in case you were wondering who this random commenter is.