Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Oreos for Me, Carrots for the Goat

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Ask not on whom the axe will fall. It falls on thee. So laugh while you can and be grateful for the small things. Like Advil and your dishwasher.

About a half mile from where I live there was a racetrack (horses). It started losing money, so it closed. It got razed, and the good ol' township found itself with 300 acres of asphalt and oak trees.

Down come the oak trees, 100 of them in the prime of life. A SIN.

Up goes this huge store called Wegmans.

Have you heard of this place? I've never seen one before, but judging from the size of the exterior, it could hold the entire fan base of the University of Michigan football team, with room left for some Penn State fans.

When my mother-in-law saw it during her last visit, she said, "Oh! When is that going to open? I can't wait! They have forty different kinds of apples! Everything you could ever want!"

I don't know about you, reader, but what I want is a grocery store that's small. If I get to Aisle Six and I've forgotten something in Aisle One, I don't want to have to call in the dogsled or the rapid transit to get back there.

And you know what else I want? I want a store where I can find things without having to ask an employee. There's nothing quite like going up to a cute guy at a customer service desk and inquiring the location of the Preparation H.

What do I need with 40 kinds of apples? All apples pale in comparison to Macouns, and everyone from West Virginia knows that Macouns can't ship. So no matter how classy Wegmans is, they ain't gonna have Macouns. Maybe 20 kinds of tasteless Red Delicious (what a misnomer).

Why are we so fascinated with big in this country? What happened to intimate? A store that has "everything I want?" Okay, I want a brand new Ferrari, on sale with coupon.

Aisle 126, right-hand side. Next to the Preparation H.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anne,

Wegman's is based in the Rochester/Buffalo, NY area. I could never understand the bigger is better mind set either.
We are in a battle against the super Walmart here, we have one why do we need another??

Athana said...

"I don't know about you, reader, but what I want is a grocery store that's small. If I get to Aisle Six and I've forgotten something in Aisle One, I don't want to have to call in the dogsled or the rapid transit to get back there."

I'm with ya, Anne! Let's just hope that Big will get so Big, that it will shoot itself in the foot, and the pendulum will swing the other way for a while (a long while).

For millions of years humans had Small, and we did just fine. Small groups, that is. No towns. No cities. No states. And certainly nothing as gigantic as a country.

I say let's sweep all that away and return to groups of twenty, roaming happily through whatever forest is well stocked with our favorite types of apple trees.