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author | cel 🌸 <cel@bunny.garden> | 2025-01-03 14:00:27 +0000 |
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committer | cel 🌸 <cel@bunny.garden> | 2025-01-03 14:00:27 +0000 |
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diff --git a/blog/illusion-of-a-grocery-store.md b/blog/illusion-of-a-grocery-store.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2020739 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/illusion-of-a-grocery-store.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ ++++ +title = "illusion of a grocery store" +published_at = "2025-01-03T13:49:41+0000" +updated_at = "2025-01-03T13:49:41+0000" +tags = ["rot"] ++++ + +walking in beverly hills i felt the need to visibly carry a brick. once i had passed the abandoned periodicals left on the driveways of empty houses, i was immediately disrespected by the unrealistic timing of a pedestrian crossing. it forced me to run, straight by a driver in her vehicle legally classified as a truck, already encroached on the zebra lines, set to run someone over. suddenly, the glimpse of her shitty 10 dollar matcha dazed me with an omen of what was to come right up ahead. the erewhon grocery store. + +approaching from the sidewalk it's surprisingly under the radar, hidden by canopies of parasols from restaurant-style outdoor seating. but upon entering, total overstimulation. i must run to find sanctuary, in the health and supplements aisle,, aisles ? it came clear too quickly that actually. the place is empty. why the fuck am i here. ah yes of course. i need 30 dollar erewhon branded socks. the fact that i couldn't actually spot the shopping baskets was the first noticeable sign this wasn't actually a grocery store. it would be an experience. + +it was clear to me that the fresh produce was not the star of the show. they were simultaneously both neglected and overly ministered to. ministered to as in totally stocked. neglected as in nobody was really buying them enough to require them to be stocked again. the real role of this area was to be a stage to perform the act of grocery shopping. an open area where you can 'bump' into locals. the final bastion of third spaces in the united states of america. each fruit and vegetable was playing their part to perfection, correctly positioned and neatly aligned in artificial grids and plastic containers. + +if you're ready to move the spontaneous chat you're having with your neighbour down to somewhere more private, all u got to do is turn the corner into one of the conversation aisles, each stocked with a panoply of 7000 kinds of the same product. we've got one for bottled water, one for nuts, one for cookies, and so on. don't worry, all the actually useful stuff is either not here or stuffed into the 1 meter long shelf in the corner. + +i really need to emphasize the bottled water situation. like i've never seen more brands of bottled water in my LIFE. there is an entire refrigerated wall of bottled water. and then that same wall is copy-pasted opposite, this time unrefrigerated. since it was clear it was not going to be possible to do actual shopping here, i realised i had to embody. i was to be a valley girl on her way to visit a friend's place for a lil get-together in the eve. of course, i needed to pick up a something. cheese and crackers. + +i was in luck. they had probably around 50 varieties of vegan cheese. decided to pick up the toasted cashew and the cranberry and dill. now for crackers i enlisted the help of an employee. after navigation through the maze that was the awkwardly-laid-out private conversation aisles, i found myself at the cracker aisle (oop--). i was directed towards all the different types. plain crackers, seeded crackers, flavoured crackers, rice crackers, oat crackers, crackers, crackers, crackers. i didn't know there could be so many crackers. space is really quite limited in this store, and yet somebody decided they would need shelf space for every kind of cracker ever invented. oh well whatever. i'll just pick the seeded cracker. what's this? omfg it's literally stuck. it's locked in. the grocery store is refusing to allow me to grocery shop. it's _not_ going to make it easy. with force, i wrench the plastic box of crackers out of the kicking and screaming shelf, narrowly avoiding making a scene of total cracker box collapse onto the floor of the aisle. victorious, i move on to restock on my essentials, peanut butter and alternative milk. + +the peanut butter here is supposed to be pretty good. the actual erewhon brand makes an odd selection of in-house products. examples include: chicken stock, biscotti, toasted almond butter, ground cinnamon, raw honey, charcoal soap. they are all mostly packaged in reusable glass jars and bottles. but then basically everything that isn't in a jar or bottle is packaged in a non-reusable transparent plastic container. so what gives? once again it's literally just a performance. a performance of eco-friendliness. like how b-corps can allow subsidiaries of coca-cola to look better than they actully are (erewhon is, ironically, also a b-corp). + +so i got my peanut butter and pistachio milk. all this tiring decision overwhelm is making me hungry ugh. in my rich person brat vibes i already quickly found myself becoming an asshole in the queue for the cafe deli take-away restaurant thing. nobody give a fuck about anybody other than themselves. i guess i would be a diva too if my life were a 25/8 bombardment of echoes of 'ya so i'm gonna book that' and 'i'm gonna invite...'. over the appropriated purple yam i relayed my choice of items for my bento. i later discovered the aubergine lasagna i got had kale in it. because of course it did. + +i made my way through the pre-prepared food in more plastic boxes area, passing at least 3 more pallets of bottled water, and the same three kinds of hummus in two different container sizes, to the smoothie bar/checkout. + +"hey, um,. are any of your smoothies vegan?" + +"umm,,, no. but i _can_ remove the collagen from the haylee bieber one if you like..?" + +i ordered the veganized haighleigh bieber strawberry stalker smoothie. the cashier asked me if i wanted to get a text when it was ready. (not-so-)smooth way to get my number for marketing purposes. my bill for about 7 items ended up being over 100 dollars. and they asked for a 15% tip. at a grocery store. + +having emerged back outside, i sat below the canopy within an american's idea of a european grocery store sipping my circa 25 dollar veganised strawberry smoothie, and watched the person opposite me who had opted for the secret water option, iced water in a plastic cup, use a knife to lay guacamole upon individual tortilla chips. the goji berries in my smoothie intentionally slowed down my consumption of the four digit caloric intake, by slightly clogging up my market-research-blue-coloured sugarcane straw. in my conceptual mood i pondered a hypothesis, that there could be a negative correlation between net worth and rate of finishing the smoothie. well, i finished it. |