You’ve made it. You snagged yourself the finest undergraduate psychology degree money can buy, you’ve committed your time to bettering the lives of those with scruples enough to call ambulances to bring them to hair appointments, and you’ve got a shiny, new apartment, complete with a fridge, which is woefully barren.
You’ve got a few Franklins in your pocket, and since you’ve somehow managed to survive on a diet consisting solely of ramen and peach Schnapps for the better part of four years, you can honestly say you know a thing or two about thrifty living. That said, you’re quite interested in applying your time-tested cash-saving strategies in the real world. When your day off rolls around, you know exactly where you’re going. You’re going to the Price Rite.
Sure, they charge for bags, and people get into fistfights over carriages in the parking lot, and most of the conversations heard in the aisles are strings of profanities in foreign languages, but the unmarked chocolate-puff cereal is the crunchiest in the tri-state area, your milk hasn’t leaked into the trunk of your car in three or four weeks, and the last time someone hit-and-ran your car while you were inside was nearly six months ago, so you tough it out. You can feed yourself (and Whiskers) for forty bucks a week. Be proud.
Grocery Aisle (Photo credit: redjar)
A few years slip by, and one day, you awake to the realization that your apartment wasn’t infested with fruit flies before you started shopping at the Price Rite, you’ve spent over $350 in bodywork, they don’t sell cold cuts, and the meager selection of meat is of questionable age and origin (Is that pork?). So, you dig in your heels and join the rank and file at the Stop & Shop. You know this is the beginning of the end, but you’re more comfortable here. You can pick out meat, fish, all the labels are in English, everything has a label, the bags are free, and you can finally showcase your culinary skills by crafting ham sandwiches with Dijon mustard on rustic boules.
It’s all smooth sailing until the store somehow ends up in cahoots with a gas retailer, and you notice that the rectangular ninety-nine cent hash browns that you (and Whiskers) love so much are suddenly $2.99, the produce feels frozen, and the cold cuts are now ten dollars a pound. If you were at all handy, you’d take up charcuterie, but you’re not, and Whiskers is kind of a pig. Your twenty-cent discount per gallon of gas is, oddly, no longer satisfying. You begin to reevaluate.
Some may regard it as a step back, but you’re moving up in the world. You’re going to Wal*Mart. Prices are so low you’re throwing boxes and bottles into your carriage with reckless abandon. One package of refrigerated cinnamon rolls? Why not three? And how’s about a dozen and a half of eggs? Can’t go wrong! You’re even careful to avoid the meat that’s been recalled. And what’s this? A bakery, too! Fancy me up a birthday cake, Helga! We’re having an office party tomorrow.
You are almost having too much fun when you realize your constitution doesn’t allow you to shop there around the first of the month, the weekend, before a holiday, during a holiday, after a holiday, or anytime during the summer. And that you don’t enjoy verbal altercations as much as you thought you did. And that your roots are just too near in color to the rest of your hair to get by undetected. Plus, you keep running into your clients in the aisles. Awkward.
Rapidly exhausting your options, you decide you’re now ready for a more elevated role, you’re going to shop local. You take up with a local chain, with adorable dinged produce, free coffee, local bakery items, meats, and cheeses, and a killer prepared foods section. You may just be in love. Except that you’re the youngest person in there, besides the baggers, and maybe it’s your imagination, but the other patrons seem to always be sipping their free coffee down at you in disgust. Is this a cult? Were you supposed to present an invitation? Are your yoga pants too ‘dressed down’? You’re a little distraught, but recover immediately after you find you purchased breaded “veal” cutlets that were actually chicken, wrapped up in your sushi was hair, and the fifth preposterously-dressed rich hag just drove her carriage into your car and wandered away. You’re over shopping local. Completely.
You’ve no choice but to pull out the big guns. You know what I’m talking about: Whole Foods. You’ve been slowly inching towards your fate, albeit reluctantly. You like food, you do, but this has all become too much. You wander inside for the first time and find it’s a WONDERLAND. During the week, you fantasize about prepared fruit bowls and Meyer lemons, and not tripping over Smart cars in the parking lot. You enjoy “catching” your own frozen shrimp and crab legs, and dispensing yourself bags full of raisins (Don’t they just taste fresher?).
Sure, you muse about making jokes at the stock boy’s expense (Excuse me? I, um, lost my keys. Do you mind if I check your beard?) and loudly scolding others for choosing the domestic tomatoes instead of the organic ones. Blowing past people in a huff and ‘accidentally’ running into ankles are not acceptable behaviors here. You’ve been away from Wal*Mart, but not for that long. You do learn, however, that the clerks will say hello to you (Say hello back!) and that you should give a respectable distance to the barefoot babywearer standing pensively over the avocados. You think of a million things not to say (but you really want to) in such a place, but you realize, resigned, that these are a peaceable people who have yet to give you a hard time.
You find yourself satisfied, if not completely broke, fair-trade certified, organic cane-sweetened root beer in hand, as you determine how you to prepare your organic Russian Fingerling potatoes. Things are finally good, for the most part. As long as you like your current clothing – and in-state vacations – for the foreseeable future.
And if, by chance, your new and improved lot in life makes you cry just a little, kindly do so into your receipt. It’s the responsible thing to do.
