Superstore

In Jan's recent post of ten things she likes and ten things she doesn't, she mentions Superstore.

I thought I would add my voice of disapproval. Superstore is a place of pain and suffering. If Dante were writing in contemporary Winnipeg, he would base one of the circles of hell on Superstore.

Let's, just for the moment, overlook the fact that Superstore has carts three feet wide and aisles three feet-two-inches wide. Let's forgive them for having an organizing scheme which was obviously designed by someone with less that a second-grade education, on hallucinogenic drugs, while having a stroke, and being beaten around the head with a shovel—producing a store where chicken broth is found in four different places, and cocoa is found nowhere. Let's pretend that we don't mind that the staff stand in the middle of the tiny aisles with their giant carts and discuss video games, and that if you ask them where to findavocadoss they look at you with a blank expression as if you inventing words. The real unpleasantness of Superstore is that everyone there—customers and staff alike—are in a foul, confrontational, angry mood. You can't even pull into the parking lot without being honked at. People in Superstore cut each other off, scowl at each other, snap at each other, roll their eyes at each other, and I can only assume, occasionally break into actual violence. I've never witnessed Superstore violence myself, because I do everything I can to avoid setting foot there, but it seems reasonable to assume, given the general mood, that it erupts from time to time. That place is a powder-keg.

We went shopping there the other day, and once we got there we realized that the carts take a loonie, and all we had was four quarters. So I went to the service desk to ask for a loonie. She told me that the service people were naccustomedmed to providing any actual SERVICE to customers, and sent me to the greeter. The greeter stood unnecessarily close to me and told me that he didn't give change. He sent me to the service desk. The service desk woman give me my loonie, but seemed mightily annoyed by it. I walked past the greeter, loonie in hand, and he stopped me, keeping me from leaving the store to walk deep into the parking lot where the carts are kept (because why would they do anything so silly as keepicartsrts in the store?). "Do you need change?" he asked me. It took all my self restraint to keep from stabbing him in the eye, and then kicking him in the crotch while he was distracted. Less than a minute into my Superstore trip, and I was contemplating violence. And everyone knows what a pacifist I am.