Sticky Business

I'm reposting some of my old blog material,
mostly to get it all in one place again.
This was originally posted on My Space on Jun 28, 2008.

Have you seen the price of stuff in the grocery store? The price of a gallon of gas is a fart in a hurricane compared to the price of groceries these days. Seriously! When did the price of a twelve pack of beer go to almost eleven bucks? I'm seriously considering switching to crack. It would be a cheaper high.

Lately, it's nothing to come out of the store with a couple of small plastic bags not quite full and a bank account thats sixty dollars lighter than when you went in. When Starbucks is the best bargin in the store something is seriously wrong my friends.

I think I might have uncovered part of the problem though. Its the fruit. Yea, it looks all innocent and shit, laying in it's bins over in the produce section but don't be fooled. There's something dark and sinister going on with that fruit. It's stickered.

What? Yeah, no kidding. There is a tiny sticker on each and every piece of fruit. Every apple, orange, plum, pear, tomato (technically fruit you know), cantelope and watermelon.


I see a couple of real problems with those stickers. One, it is no longer possible to just rinse the fruit and eat it. Oh, no. You have to peel that little sticker off first. Good luck with that though. You might as well be trying to peel the paint off your car. That little baby is on there and it's not coming off without the assistance of a sharp knife (which, by the way, according to the terms of my parole, I am not allowed to be in possession of ...).

And second, who's job is it to put that sticker on there in the first place? I mean really, where do you go to apply for that job? Does it require training? Do you need a resume and two references not related to you? How much are we paying these people to put those damned stickers on the fruit? No wonder fruit is so expensive.

And what do you tell people when they ask you what you do for a living? "Me? Oh, nothing really. I mostly identify various agicultural products which are destined for distribution through retail dealers."

Is there a job title associated with that job?

And while we're on the subject of grocery stores... I've noticed that frequently, while shopping, a very mechanical female voice will flatly announce "Sevice Desk, two zero one".

What in the hell is THAT all about? Is it really necessary to interrupt Barry Manilow's "Mandy" to broadcast some ominous sounding cryptic code to everyone inside? Are there armed gunmen in the store? Is there another outbreak of salmonella? Is the gouda cheese about to pass beyond the 'Sell By' date? WTF???

Hell, the Service Desk probably doesn't even know what it means. So knock it off already.