Humor: Dear Supermarket Management, Thanks for the workout!

Look at those high shelves! This is one of my favorite climbing sites in Mesa.Photo bySuzy Jacobson Cherry

I’m so glad I need to come into your store every day. If I didn’t, I would probably have to add at least 30 minutes to my regular exercise routine to make up for what I would lose in activity levels.

There used to be a time when the walk through your aisles was more of a leisurely saunter with short stops to check labels and lift heavier items from the bottom shelves into my cart. This was my experience when my children were young and my main workout involved brain exercise via calorie and cost calculations.

Of course, there was always the physical challenge of reigning in children and navigating noise levels which is unique to parents shopping with kids.However, you’ve topped that challenge by a long shot.

Sometime since my little workout buddies became full adult human beings themselves, the nature of my shopping workout has changed. Where I once easily completed arm day by reaching up, lifting cans or other items, and moving them into my cart, I now have the added challenge of climbing your shelves and stretching totickle the box or can to the front of the shelf with my fingertips. Then I achieve better arm definition by lifting the item off the high shelf so I can climb down, one-handed, to floor level.

If I do enough of these reaches, I’m fairly sure my core will become tight and fit as if I were still doing Physical Training in the Air Force. The climb up the shelves, which often occurs multiple times during my excursions, will no doubt have tightened my gluteus maximus and stretched my hamstrings so I have legs like a dancer.

I’m only a bit over five-foot-two these days, but I was a good five-three for the majority of my life. With a difference of just about one-half inch, I can attest that the shelves are clearly higher than they used to be.For some unfathomable reason, everything I want is on the top shelf and pushed back six to eight inches from the front.

I’m not sure when your staff stopped the practice of fronting-and-facing, but I’ve got to thank them for adding the obstacle to my course. This forces me to jump up and down repeatedly in order to see if the item I want is in stock, since I can’t see it from my floor-bound position.

Any shopping exercise at your store includes an exhilarating execution of evasive techniques. In order to help your customers with this important operation, you have kindly invited representatives of a cellular telephone company to stand in the back of the store. When they see an intent shopper approaching, the appointed operators deploy.

Let me explain, using myself as an example:

I try to kindly walk past the poor people who are trying to sell me a different cell phone service every single time I come into the store, which is almost every day. I walk across the aisle from them, concentrating on the cases on the opposite side. I’m focusing on a particular item that should be in one of the cases. One agent of cellular activation calls out, “How are you doing today ma’am?”

They almost step in front of me and I have no choice but to answer. I say, “I’m fine, but you know what? They set you up. They set you guys up because people don’t want this. We come here because we need something we want to get it and get home.”

I turn away and try to leave, but they pursue me. I attempt commiseration, because I understand their plight. They have a job to do. But this operator does not get my point and breaks into my response, saying, “Well ma’am, I’m not the one who’s here everyday, I’ve never been to the store before. We just have to feed our kids, you know, like everybody else. We just have a job to do.”

The choice to respond in this way makes my empathy come off as whining. So I say, possibly somewhat condescendingly, “I know, I’m sorry,” and walk away wondering why, when I was pointedly trying not to talk to them, they follow me, block my way, and virtually force a confrontation.

Today I simply avoided them altogether, a decision which was reinforced when I noted one of the operativesliterallyfollowing another of your customers into an aisle, talking about their “deal.”

In addition to becoming a part of my fitness plan, your store has become a fantastic asset to honing my ability to compare and contrast. Incredulously, when I look for my favorite flavored instant coffee drink since they discontinued International Foods Orange Cappuccino, either Hills Bros. Mocha or Maxwell House Mocha, the only flavor of EITHER of those brands on your shelf is French Vanilla.

Rows and rows of French Vanilla. I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me.

I know they still make mocha, because if I go down the road to your closest competitor, I find it in stock. That’s how I know the training I’ve been getting at your store must be working. I’ve compared the available stock and contrasted it with the stock available elsewhere.

In fact, it’s clear that you are determined to make me an expert at detection as well. Not only can I now easily detect when you no longer carry my favorite items, but every few months or so, you shift everything around.

It may be an attempt to confuse the snowbirds — ummm — I mean winter visitors — but I’m beginning to think it’s just another tactic in training me to become better at seeking and finding. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.

Now that I’ve figured out the plot, you may be changing everything soon, if the Kroger/Albertsons merger goes through. If you sell the Albertsons down the street, I may not have an option close by for my instant mocha. I doubt you all at Fry’s will start stocking it again, and if you did, it would probably be on a shelf near the ceiling.

Then again, maybe whoever you sell the Albertsons to will be a bit more user-friendly in their design. Whatever they do, I hope it’s a Piggly-Wiggly!

Sincerely,
Your long-time customer, Me