Everything was so fucking expensive. They also put in those refrigerators where it has the ads and they're just as fucking awful and weird as the pictures would have you believe. Also, the big cctv showing you as you go down the aisle and check out are fucked. At self check out you can no longer mute it so it has to talk to you. Finally, they hired security to stand at the entrance of the store which is gross. edit: Some stuff was also locked in a cabinet

The devil is in that store. I'm so fucking pissed.

  • KimJongFun [he/him]
    ·
    5 months ago

    American grocery stores are extremely cursed places, the sensory overload alone is overwhelming. Wandering into a supermarket while tripping on mushrooms is like stepping into a bosch painting but all the demons are cereal mascots, do not recommend.

    • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      5 months ago

      If you're looking to enjoy stores and drugs simultaneously, I recommend shopping on an ecstasy come-up or a mini-dose of acid.

    • D61 [any]
      ·
      5 months ago

      Me and my spouse going shopping together and having to scream at each other to be heard over the music/radio/noise machine being blasted from overhead speakers.

      screm-a aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaa screm3

    • Shinji_Ikari [he/him]
      ·
      5 months ago

      It took me years to understand why I lock up in grocery stores, just autism.

      Certain Wegmans stores have really soft lighting and plenty of pleasing brown tones in the signage. Its silly to argue for a grocery store chain but in terms of "soothing elements in the decor improving general vibes" its leagues above most grocery stores I've been to.

      I went to a recently opened Barns and Nobel and for some reason the psychopaths in corporate decided this one should be a lot more stark white, blue af lighting, and claustrophobic shelf organization. Thankfully the new Bevins book was right up front and I was able to escape with little damage.

      • Saeculum [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        5 months ago

        I'm firmly of the option that bookstores should always be some variation on wood tones/furnishing, warm lighting and if possible, a darker shade of carpet.

        This infiltration of sterile white into every corner of retail is a sickness.

        • BakerBagel@midwest.social
          ·
          5 months ago

          It's it just retail. Even homes are like that too now. A friend of mine bought a house with beautiful wood paneling in the kitchen, and the FIRST thing he did was paint that all white.

    • Jenniferrr [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      Pretty much why I only go go to either trader Joe's or bargain grocery places. The bargain places are so cheap if you're flexible and trader Joe's is just straightforward. I've also heard Aldi is pretty good

      • BakerBagel@midwest.social
        ·
        5 months ago

        Aldi US kinda sucks tbh. The produce is always nasty in my town, the meats all come in frozen and never thaw out properly, and while canned goods are cheaper, it's usually because they are smaller sizes than comparable stuff from other grocery stores. They have a few little treats that i like, but it never feels worth it when i go there. I'm just fortunate that we have about 5 different grocery stores in my little town, as well as a bunch of farm markets and weekly farmers markets around the area in the summer.

    • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      5 months ago

      My local store, part of a national chain, has advertisements for the very same store you're standing in every 2 minutes. The ads are louder than the music itself

      I would legitimately lose my mind if I worked there, even shopping there feels like purgatory

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
      ·
      5 months ago

      Had a friend (rip) who would do this with me. He was the only one I liked to do psychedelics with cause we'd go to retail stores or grocery stores and basically be an Adam Curtis documentary. No one else likes to stare into the harsh abyss of capitalism on a headful of acid. We even referred to taking acid euphemistically as 'going to the linen section at Target' cause we snuck off from a group and dropped acid there as teens.

      • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
        ·
        5 months ago

        Ugggh, now I'm sad. I miss sneaking onto the docks and talking about the global supply chain while surrounded by container ships on 3 hits of acid.

  • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    My local supermarket recently installed automatic gates like they have at train stations that can they presumedly lock if they suspect you of 'stealing' their criminally priced goods.

    The West is so free!

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      5 months ago

      oh fuck one time they had one of the wheels of a cart lock up and had someone check my cart because they suspected I shoplifted (I didn't)

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      Wtf, this is the first time I've heard of this. Could we get an example pic, I just don't know what to visualis

          • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            5 months ago

            You should see the article this image comes from. Basically the whole thing labels people who don't like the surveillance as "weird conspiracy theorists" and "most people don't care" and "It's a private establishment they have a right to protect their stock"

            I fucking hate this country

    • theposterformerlyknownasgood
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      They tried that at my local store and someone just broke down the gate rat-salute-2 Then they tried GPS locking the shopping carts so someone stole all of them

    • Ho_Chi_Chungus [she/her]
      ·
      5 months ago

      fill your cart with canned goods and push it at full speed

      (my local grocery store i no longer frequent also put these in recently and it's super jarring. hate those things)

    • D61 [any]
      ·
      5 months ago

      Gotta be a fire code violation...

  • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]
    ·
    5 months ago

    but there is a second kind of prison, where the things of life are inside and the people are outside

  • robinn_IV
    ·
    5 months ago

    There was a security guard at this more fancy grocery store I went to (useless waste of money, the camera spamming does the intimidation trick), and they had enough cameras to catch you from every possible angle like they needed to do Ted Lasso closeups for the folks at home.

    "Smart fridges" are the most brutal wing of fascism, heaping piles of garbage where 90% of the energy goes to playing ads for frivolous consumer slop and the other 10% goes to manufacturing ice "cubes" in absurdly impractical shapes just so that one day it can be a "conversation starter," so all the while you have to suffer biting into the jagged edge of a Minions Funko Pop eldritch ice monster so your lukewarm lead poisoned tap water doesn't get too boring. I don't want my refrigerator to be a TV, I don't want my refrigerator to be a tablet, I don't want my refrigerator to be a "smart home" control panel, I don't want my refrigerator to be a video game console, I want it to keep food cold. If a sci-fi film maker came up with the idea of refrigerators that talk to you and function as a TV remote (because that's so much more convenient!), even in some dystopian hellscape, they would be laughed out of a job and ground up into soylent green for some middle class cat to chew on. Death to "smart appliances."

    • D61 [any]
      ·
      5 months ago

      There are a few gas stations where there are LCD screens baked into the pumps that play weird ass advertisements while you pump gas. There adverts are for things like, "Go on a Cruise to Hawaii!" or "Buy a New Car" instead of something that makes sense like "Go the fuck inside the store and buy some junk food".

  • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]
    ·
    5 months ago

    I've had the opportunity to use the public bathroom in wealthy and poor neighborhoods and the difference is striking. [City name] grocery stores have combination locks on the bathrooms, [City name]-hills has sushi bars at the entrance.

    • FourteenEyes [he/him]
      ·
      5 months ago

      The last grocery store I worked at had a wine bar. So you could sit there drinking wine and beer and order food while someone shops for you.

      I hate this town.

      • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]
        ·
        5 months ago

        Oh this just made me realize that was the intention of the wine bar they removed from our Kroger during the remodel last year, and that I haven't seen the snooty lady who ran it since then. 🤔

        I always wondered who tf that wine bar was for, I didn't understand they were encouraging people to hang out while someone else shopped for them. They would occasionally have actual, live musicians standing around that area of the store! I remember thinking, "Wow, this is kind of A Lot for a wine tasting....." 🤦😂 now I finally get it.

  • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    You didn't lose a wisdom roll, you won a perception/mythos roll

    Oh wait saving throw, I get it now. Yeah, those are getting harder

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      5 months ago

      That's the glass being half full, comrade. Thank you. What is a mythos roll? Looked like it was eldritch adjacent and that makes it of particular interest to me.

      • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        It's from Call of Cthulu, it's basically when you see some cosmic horror but you already know enough about the eldritch forces beneath the surface of reality that you understand exactly what you're looking at where others cannot. Knowing what kind of monster you're encountering helps you fight it better, but it also takes a toll on your sanity.

        I and many others like to draw parallels between that and having an understanding of capitalism, because the comparisons are practically one to one. That, and I truly believe that Capital is semi-literally a living dead god, but that's a longer explanation than I feel up to giving right now.

        • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]
          hexagon
          ·
          5 months ago

          When you do feel like giving it, I'm loving it. Like a god in that you must worship it while it extends its tendrils until it's profoundly wound up in the culture, environment, and your own mind?

          • charlie
            ·
            5 months ago

            https://ianwrightsite.wordpress.com/2020/09/03/marx-on-capital-as-a-real-god-2/

            Basically this

  • farting_weedman [none/use name]
    ·
    5 months ago

    Stop shopping, start being a crazy person with a calculator and notepad comparing and double checking the per unit prices of things.

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      5 months ago

      They wouldn't just falsify the per unit pricing... would they?? I do check volumes and pricing against the other items as well as looking at nutrition info and ingredient lists. I go in with recipes and treat it like I'm taking a test. Double checking unit pricing would make me miserable.

      • farting_weedman [none/use name]
        ·
        5 months ago

        I don’t think they do it on purpose. Sometimes the sticker machine has the wrong information or it doesn’t take into account the sale price or if you get cheese at Walmart, sometimes they jack up the price of block cheese to match the pre shredded price.

  • frippa@lemmy.ml
    ·
    4 months ago

    I live in a relatively "safe" and "peaceful" country, in a relatively good zone of the city, I went to one of the most expensive supermarket and there was a fucking armed guard... Do they trust us so little? For reference i know armed guards are more common in burger land but here I saw them only at banks and museums, is a rostiserie chicken as valuable as a ancient artifact? Also I dont think they make back the salary of the guard from what they recoup from not "stolen" (read expropriated) stuff

    Necroposting over