five things I dislike about shopping at central market

Music: Tori Amos: Night of Hunters (2011)

My favorite grocery store in Aus-Vegas is Central Market, a less-expensive port of Whole Foods, and less pretentious too. They also carry lobster, which Whole Foods refuses to do because they believe boiling crustaceans causes sentient pain. Central Market is a little more expensive than the average grocery store, and a lot more expensive than Wal-Mart. But, they have good employee relations (and benefits), and in general the customer service is really great (the same is true of Whole Foods). Still, as Eeyore is my patron saint, I managed to find some things worthy of complaint, most of which have to do with the people who shop there:

1. The lady who steps out in front of my car when I am trying to park: I’m about to turn into a space when a sunglassed young woman looks up, sees me coming, and decides nevertheless to walk in front of me, causing me to slam on my brakes. But instead of scuttling to get out of the way, she elects to “text” on her phone in this jaywalkish moment, slowing her pace substantially. She cost me an extra ten seconds. Lady: you deserve to get hit the next time you do that.

2. The older woman dressed in all black who cuts in front of me to price her produce: I’m walking toward the scale one has to use the produce department to print off a price label, based on the weight of your produce. I’m about three feet away when a blond woman plops in front of me to weigh her produce. This is fine, she didn’t see me. As I stand behind her waiting patiently, another woman, elderly and dressed in all black, approaches the opposite side of the woman weighing and looks at me. Then, when the first woman is done the lady dressed in black plops down a big ol’ bag of green peppers. She doesn’t say “sorry” or “excuse me.” Just because you are older than me doesn’t mean you don’t need to observe common courtesy. Grrr.

3. The cheese sample hogs: So, one of the rare delights of shopping at Central Market is that they are always doling out food samples. The best are always in the cheese department. There’s a bar, and on it sits a sample tray, and as a matter of sequence, when shopping at Central Market, one always has to make a pass through the cheese section for that free sample. Today two women were sampling as I neared. I went off to another section to fetch something, and then came back. They were still sampling. They kept sampling. Like I watched them take three samples each. You know, I think you’re only supposed to take one sample, people. Then move and let others sample. Grrr.

4. The lack of pork rinds: Almost every grocery store in town sells pork rinds. Pork rinds are eaten by Texans. So is salsa. Central Market has a whole aisle just for salsa and tortilla chips. Seriously. Whole Foods doesn’t have pork rinds, I reckon, because these are presumably unhealthy (no more unhealthy as the marbled meat they sell, or the margarine, and so on). But Central Market: why can’t you have pork rinds? Some recipes call for crumbled pork rinds for texture. I dislike that you do not have pork rinds, Central Market, as I suspect it is really about "class." Only lower-income people eat pork rinds, and you presume you are above this, Central Market? Boo.

5. The jock who has an intense conversation with girlfriend on his cell phone while checking-out: Dude, neither me, nor the clerk, care about your relationship troubles, and your public airing of them significantly slows down the process. It’s difficult to swipe your card and punch your PIN when Ginger is accusing you of insensitivity. She’s right, you know.