ARCHIVED POSTS
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March 25, 2023
Life Lessons at the Supermarket
SUPERMARKET SAFARI
I love going to the supermarket.
I usually have a long list of the things I’m supposed to buy, but I really want to do is see what’s not on the list. I want to walk up and own every single aisle, explore every offering along the way, and check out what is available, even if I do not plan to buy any of the items I see.
There are some people, whom I wisely choose not to name, who think this is crazy. They go to the supermarket, get what they need, check out as quickly as they can, and then come straight home with their purchases. They feel that shopping for groceries is a chore, not an adventure.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
Going to the supermarket is like going on an exploration of the society in which we live. What are people eating, how are they preparing it, and what does it all say about society as a whole? If you want insight into how the world works, don’t turn on the news. That is not now, nor has it ever been, a reflection of reality.
If you want to understand our culture and the people with whom we share it, go to the supermarket.
We all have to eat, and Americans come together at the supermarket, telling their own stories in what they buy, how they act, how they relate to their fellow shoppers, and how they pay for what they buy.
There are the folks who see the market as a place to meet with friends. They block the aisles as they gossip with acquaintances and kinfolk or even people they’ve just met. There are the bickering husbands and wives, snapping at each other over what kind of mustard or jelly to buy. There are the out-of-control children, whether in the cart seat or running up and down the aisles grabbing whatever catches their fancy.
Some brave souls go to the market with a list and an objective. These people are on a mission. For them, it’s in and out fast. Pick up the groceries, do a quick self-checkout, and out the door to the parking lot. These are the efficient and focused people – not at all bad people, but not very curious or interested in the other folks and the drama that unfolds all around them.
Then there are the explorers – people like me, who go up and down every aisle, checking to see what’s being offered – even if they have no plans to buy. The explorers are in the same genus as the bargain hunters with a handful of coupons, looking to save a few cents on each item. The explorers are at war with the people on a mission, because the explorers are always loitering in the aisles, getting in the way and blocking the progress of the in-and-outers.
For explorers, there is a lot to see. There’s the cheese and cheese-like food products – processed slices of cheddar, shredded jack, cheese wedges, string cheese in a stick, and rubbery pretend cheese like Velvetta, Cheez Whiz and American cheese slices – some of it legally classified as cheese and some on the borderline.
There is the dairy section – milk and milk-like products – such things as almond milk, cashew milk, soy milk, coconut milk, and oat milk. These products have nothing to do with milk, except they are a sort of a whiteish liquid that may or may not be creamy. Even the real milk comes in nonfat, 1 percent fat, 2 percent fat, half-and-half, pure cream, and whipping cream, which is often more vegetable oil than dairy product.
There are the novelty items, such as the omelet mixes – all you have to do is add an egg, stir, and microwave. Peanut butter and jelly or chocolate and jelly all pre-stirred in the same jar, mini bagels made to taste like pizzas, dozens of keto products, and various pickles and pickle relishes. The list goes on and on, and explorers want to check out all of it, even if they have no problem with putting their own peanut butter and jelly separately on their own bread.
If you are thirsty, there are sodas (somewhat out of fashion now) mineral waters, energy drinks, fortified water, distilled water, and zero calorie drinks. There’s also a huge variety of juices and juice-like products that are more water, special flavoring and a bunch of dyes. If you want to grab a meal without sitting around a table with your pesky mate or children, there are hot pockets, chicken tenders, frozen calzones, tater tots, protein shakes, and sugary, high-fiber, high-protein “health bars.”
There are a lot of cross-over items that span more than one category. Things such as trail mix – a supposedly healthy product that may include candied nuts or little chunks of chocolate in case you need to feed your sweet tooth while you’re hiking the High Sierras. There’s cereal, wheat or rice flakes and nuggets, often coated in syrup, icing, sugar, and artificial coloring and sweeteners.
CEREAL OR CANDY?
There are canned and frozen fruit chunks, packed in syrup or coated and frozen with a sugary glaze. There are even vegetables that have been mixed with extra ingredients to make them more enticing than they might otherwise be.
Even the fresh vegetables in the produce section have been processed, cut up, mixed, and added to in order to save you from doing those menial chores yourself. Many children have never seen a head of lettuce or leaves of spinach that weren’t mixed in a plastic bag with a label that says “Spring Mix” or “Asian Slaw.”
BBQ CHOICES
Unless you’re a chemist, don’t bother reading the ingredients on most of what you find in a grocery store, first because you won’t understand them, but mainly because you don’t really want to know what is in a lot what you’re planning to put on the dinner table and in your body. I don’t really want to know, either, but I have an in-house expert who likes nothing better than to inform me of how may grams of sodium and how many grams of sugar and sugar-like components are in whatever snack I am about to put in my mouth.
I’m not looking down on any of these processed food-like items – except maybe baby carrots, which are just grown-up carrots cut up to look like what a baby carrots might look like.
I happily consume and appreciate what modern science and corporations have done to make our lives easier, such as low-sodium turkey bacon, which is a staple at my breakfast table. It may not be as tasty as fatty high-sodium swine bacon, but it is apparently healthier, so I do eat and even enjoy it.
The whole supermarket society is presided over by a corps of burned-out, fed-up employees, who – if tracked down and prodded – will help you retrieve the item from the back of the top shelf that only a pro-basketball giant could reach on his own.
Sometimes, because it is no longer considered a serious crime to steal, small, expensive items are locked behind closed glass cases that only an employee can open. Then, when the customer gets the item and examines it up close, he may decide he actually wants the similar one next to the one he got behind the same case. That never puts a smile on the employee’s face.
The employees at the store are the grocery store bureaucrats – much like government employees, except they can actually be fired if they step too far out of line.
The drama doesn’t stop when you finish at the check-out line. It continues right into the parking lot.
There are the people who have forgotten where they parked and are wandering up and down the various aisles, trying to identify their own vehicle – a task made harder by the fact that modern cars all look sort of the same.
There is a gauntlet of political hirelings collecting signatures for issues on which they have little information or understanding and bums looking for a handout.
There are the parents who let their children run wild through the slow, but potentially deadly, parking lot traffic.
There are the people who leave their shopping carts in the middle of an empty parking space, even though there is a corral for empty carts just a few steps away. These are usually the same people who can’t wait to get home to enjoy their snacks, so they throw the wrapping on the ground as they back out.
Then there are the parking lot heroes, those fine folks who take their own carts back to the corral, often picking up other carts along the way. They’re the same ones who help old ladies struggling to transfer their groceries from cart to car.
That’s who I aspire to be.
It may not be my ticket to heaven, but maybe – just maybe – it’ll make me a little bit proud of myself.
I can only hope.
If you would like to subscribe to our work, you may contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know and you will get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.
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March 15, 2023
AN EARLY BIRD CELEBRATION
Getting old is not for sissies.
I just received an invitation to my 65th Boca Ciega High School reunion, class of ’58. I am happy to report that Boca Ciega High School is still the home of the Pirates – apparently the bloodthirsty outlaws of the sea have not yet fallen victim to the politically correct hordes.
The invitation was surprising to me in a couple of ways. First of all, I was surprised that it’s been 65 years since I graduated high school. That’s a really long time. And second, why me? I hated school – elementary school, junior high, high school, and college. My biggest goal when I graduated high school was to get as far away from all those people I had so little in common with, and to never see them again. I’d been pretty successful, up until last week. To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember anybody from my high school days who hasn’t already died. That said, I’m kind of curious about what those few survivors of the Class of ’58 are doing 65 years later.
As I studied the invite, I found a few interesting things. I have been to a lot of celebratory receptions, dinner-dances, awards dinners and lunches, and even fancy breakfasts to honor this person or recognize that anniversary. But, I have to say, this 65th High School Reunion invite had some things I’d never seen before. The dinner is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. – just in time, I suspect, for the early-bird special. As far as I can ascertain, there is no dancing scheduled – so it’s a dinner, rather than a dinner-dance. That’s kind of a plus in my book, although my potential date voiced disappointment.
The reunion info packet proudly highlights that the Holiday Inn is only 500 feet from the reunion restaurant, which made me speculate as to whether attendees walking over from the hotel would be required to check their walkers by the door or if guests would be able to bring their walkers on in and park them near their tables.
Sixty-five years is a long time. As I mentioned, there aren’t a whole lot of us left, and I wondering what, exactly, we might have in common. What are we going to talk about, besides our health problems, their grandkids, and exchanging lies about how no one has “changed a bit,” since high school.
It seems to me that the event would be a lot more interesting if there was some kind of “tontine” involved. A vintage 1958 Bogey sweatshirt with a pirate on the chest for the last surviving member of the class would be nice. Or perhaps something even more valuable that we could all stand around and admire and that might give one of us that added determination to stay alive just a little while longer, so we could be the one to collect the final payout.
Tontines have fallen out of favor in the United States over the years, but they are actually quite special. After World War II, there was a brief resurgence, when guys who left their homes and risked their lives together created them as a way of somehow staying in touch with blood brothers who scattered far and wide after the war. They had some pretty cool tontines in those days. My favorite was the one that was for a very good and very old bottle of Scotch that was trotted out once a year to sit in the middle of the reunion lunch table and be admired before, finally, being left with the last man standing to sip and remember his old buddies. That’s if his doctors still allowed him the occasional swig of alcohol.
Graduating high school together isn’t nearly as dramatic as going to war, but tontines would sure make 65th high school reunions a lot more interesting. We could all make side bets over who was going to die next and who was most likely to take the final prize.
It was very nice to be invited to the 65th Boca Ciega High School Reunion. But with all due respect to my fellow Pirates, I’m not going.
Even if I could be back in my room at the Holiday Inn by 6 p.m.
If you would like to subscribe to our work, you may contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know and you will get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.
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March 4, 2023
Dog Raising Tips
The best strategy for training a dog is to do everything they say the instant they say it. Then they don’t make any trouble. Works with husbands too. – Carmela Cunningham
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February 27, 2023
Which Way Is Best?
When I was a youngster in the South, people hung their toilet roll so it unrolled on the back side, closest to the wall. When I met my wife, her family hung their toilet paper roll just the opposite, so it unrolled on the near side, closest to the toilet.
So that’s the way we do it now. I’ve seen it both ways, but which is the best? You tell me.
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Human Conformity
“What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There’s no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told – and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their ‘beliefs.’ The reason is that beliefs guide behavior which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question.” – author Michael Crichton