Okay, I must admit that I'm getting lazy.
There is a perfectly fine, well-stocked, reasonably-priced
grocery store about four miles from my house.
The traffic in and out of there is often a nightmare, but the selection
of products is impressive, I always save cash, and even their store brands are
pretty good.
However, I have decided that most of the time convenience
outweighs common sense, and I go shopping at the store that is only about a
mile from my house. Oh sure, the
selection blows and the prices and higher, but I can often get sales that make
it almost but not quite worth my while. Their
produce selection is horrible, and they often put milk out that has marginal
dates. But there's something to be said
for a quick trip in and out; you see, this store is so detested that most of
the locals shun it and travel four miles to the family-owned conglomerate,
which means that there is always decent parking and there are never any lines.
There is one more store that's even closer, less than half a
mile from where I live. It's more of a
specialty grocery store, and the parking lot is a nightmare of a maze. One can get in easily enough, but parking is
limited, and the exit requires a series of twists and turns that rival wartime
strategic plans. The produce is great,
but everything else is natural or imported. I'm not even sure if they sell regular old
white cow's milk as they are more apt to sell hand-churned goat-butter and tofu
ice cream. I'm not even sure if they
sell meat there, but if they do, it's probably free-range bison raised by
hemp-wearing hippies who prefer tie-dye to tie clips.
I'm lazy, but I guess this makes me middle-of-the-road
lazy: I'm somewhere between uber-convenience
and snobbery, somewhere between where the closet-Democrats and working-class
Republicans shop and where the Kennedy-crats and Romey-cans shop.
Apparently even my shopping habits are unenrolled, and that
suits me just fine.
