the Grocery Store

A grocery store is a concept you should be aware at this point in your adult life, they stock the food, they price the food, and I, for an outragous price, buy the food. Some days we mix things up with 'sales.' All sales are or should be posted where the usual pirce was; now, some asshat establishments make you subscribe and become a member in order to obtain these sales, despite mailing me stacks of coupons on a weekly biases.

This is a store I do not frequent, Golden Eagle, an overpriced hipster store that immitates the standard grocer model. I am only here because it's 90 degrees in Ohio and my apratment doesn't have central air. These are no conditions to be cooking food for myself and my wonderful girlfriend, Sadie. Golden Eagle sells precooked meals so we can still eat healthy for the same price as going to a fast food conglomerate, I am particularly fond of the jerk chicken but to my dismay the bastards replaced it with lemon seasoned chicken breasts. Finding myself put on the spot to find a new dinner plan we need to come up with a plan b.

Sadie had already abanded plans for precooked chicken long before the news broke of the discontinued jerked chicken and began searching for her alternative. I found her by the deli meats selecting a choice cut of ham. I personally hate lunch meat and only eat it out of desperation for sack lunchs. As we walk out of the prepared food section, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed pot pies for six dollars. How long had it been since I've had a pot pie? It's no jerk chicken but a welcomed surprise for sure.

"Do we have bread at home?" Sadie asks me, I stop and search the kitchen in my memories. "No, we only have one slice left. "One slice?" she looks at me mockingly. I had a peanutbutter sandwhich earlier that day, but none of that is important. We go to the bread section, I prefer sliced sourdough bread but since I don't do the meal prep we need to find a healthier option. Low calorie bread is thin flakey overpriced garbage. Sara Lee 45 whole wheat bread is on sale: Buy one at 4.99 and get one free. I remember when Sara Lee was two dollars and it was still the most expense bread on the shelf.

The experience of Gold Eagle has gone downhill for me since the moment they discontinued my chicken but it would all be over after we use the shelf check out and head home. As my luck would have it Sadie doesn't have her member keychain on her so we have to wait in line with the normies and have a cashier tag and bag our food. The customer in front of us is trying to hand cash to the cashier but the cashier wont take it. The sign say cahs or card whats the hold up? The Cashier informs the customer that the money needs to be inserted below the conveyor belt and his change will be dispensed next to the payment slot. What the hell is this?! You have a CASHier that cant take CASH, at this point why not just make this another self check out?!

Am I crazy for having such thoughts in our declining society? The Cashier says nothing as my items approach the scanner, at least the automated screen says hello; I dont want to keep bringing this up, but my god why the hell is this guy here?! Sadie is showing signs of embarrassment, she and the cashier had heard my complaints about his job's existance.

"21.54" that's all he said in our interaction.

This number seems high to me, I go through the items I bought in my mind as I mindlessly swipe my debit card. One pot pie, six dollars, one belgian waffle with brown sugar crystals, dollar-fifty, two loafs of sara lee 45 calorie whole wheat bread, four ninety-nine. Eleven dollars and some change before tax. Did this cyborg double charge me for the bread. "It was too late, I had paid, no turning back now. Lets go home and enjoy my pot pie..." is something a sane man would say but I hate corpo america and will fight for my hard earned dollar. "To customer service!"

We stand before a Gen X woman with hair, nails, make-up, and attitude of a former post punker, she was not having any nonsense. "Well if its not in the computer then I dont think we can honor the sale which you have stated." she told us as if she had rehearsed lines and regurgitated from online training courses with all the ins and outs of screwing over normal people just trying to buy a loaf of bread. Her words danced around the point of the matter, they had marked this item as a buy one get one free and they had made the mistake of dismissing us of said sale. "it's not marked on the app" Sadie and her exchanged customer service voices one upping each other over who can be the can be the nicest and still come out on top. I'm a straight forward guy, no song and dance for me, if I had to sit here another moment and listen to this trial of Phil and Sadie V. Golden Eagle then I'd jump over the counter and- hold on a moment. A more ideal solution comes to me. I walk back to the bread section and remove the entire sale ticket, original price and sale sticker, I have these bastards now.

I return back to see the debate coming to a close, and Sadie had not been able to persuade the woman who attended to the costumer service booth. I smack the coupon down onto the counter and look the woman in the eye with a glistening victory in mine. She picks up the coupon and says "oh here's the problem. this coupon is for sara lee bread, not speciality sara lee bread such as 45 calorie assorted flavors." This clown here is going to have me leaving with one loaf of bread, one in a terrible arranged blue plastic grocery bag and the other shoved down her throat. I get ready for my turn to take the stand and win this argument where Sadie had faltered.

Sadie and I prepare to switch places but out of the corner of my eye I see an aged hippie smiling at me. These kinds of things aren't too uncommon to me, I wear a hat made from hemp with a button of a peace sign; showing my protest of the atomic bomb. I also had on my signature purple tinted prescription glasses and a grateful dead 1974 tour shirt that i had been wearing for the past fifteen years. My nails painted a collage of red and blue and rings on both my ring finger on my right hand and on my middle finger on my left. To most I give off a hippie vibe, especially when I haven't shaved around my mustache and have grown a unkempt beard. As our eyes meet her frail arms gesture a peace sign. I am not feeling too peaceful today but more punk rock. The corner of my mouth elevates into a light smirk, almost a smile, and i return the gesture. She reverts back into the school girl of her youth, giggly, face illuminated with a cherry glow from the excitement of a mutual moment she hadn't received in so many years. Maybe this was like when the Stones finally came through her town and she shared the same moment with Mick Jager.

I return to the discussion between Sadie and the woman behind the counter. "Well it was our fault for displaying the coupon in the incorrect location, and you did remove the tag insuring no one else would stumble onto these problems in the near future, so we will honor the coupon this time, I'll just need the card you used during the transaction." We had won, we had beat Corpo-America grocery store and received the discount they offered to us when we made the decision to put two loafs of over priced bread into our shopping cart.

As we exit the store I tell myself I'll never be returning to this establishment and they can go to hell but I know i'll be back; maybe next time they will have the jerk chicken.