Dear MegaPharmaMart,
I realize you are in a fight to the death with the Targets and Wal-Marts of the world, but does every drug store now gracing the planet have to try to compete with the discount giants on the sheer amount, number, and volume of non-personal-care-related items they cram under one roof? I realize that wishing the local drug store would just carry items reasonably considered to be personal-care-related is akin to longing for the days of the village apothecary and doctors making home visits by horse-drawn carriage, but really, do you honestly think anyone goes to the local Rite-Aid to buy a rice cooker? However, I will agree to let you stock all kinds of cheap, unattractive, shoddily-made goods, schmaltzy greeting cards, designer knockoff sunglasses and like if you agree to try to impose some kind of coherent internal logic to your layout, along with clear and intelligible labeling. I realize it might be just me, but it took me five circuits of the store today to find bug dope because I didn't think to look for it in the same aisle as oil filters for the car and liquid laundry detergent - all of which were helpfully located under a sign that said "Household". Um, what?!?! What house do YOU live in? May I introduce you to my friend, the Dewey Decimal System, or perhaps the alphabet??
Crabbily,
Some Pig
PS You may exempt your surprisingly large selection of wine from my general condemnation of superfluous goods offered at drug stores, although I guess that would count as "personal care related".
PPS Could you up the quality of those wines at least a notch? If I find myself in extremis for a glass of a piquant but noble red some night, I hate to think I'm limited to the best the Messrs. Paul Masson and Ernest & Julio Gallo have to offer.
Dear Toothbrush Companies,
Do you know how long it took me today to find two (2) toothbrushes (teethbrush?) for two adults (me and my better half) that were exactly the same? All I wanted were two ultrasoft bristle brushes. I did not need any other bells and whistles. I did not want an "oral health care system." I did not need cheek scrapers, gum pickers, mouth massagers, or anything else you dreamed up to charge the tooth-cleaning consumer another ninety-five cents. I just wanted two goddamn brushes that didn't whir, buzz, vibrate, or otherwise demand batteries, an electrical outlet, or a guinea pig running on a wheel to power them. Can we all get on the same page here?
Some Pig
Dear Fortune 500 Company With a Vested Interest in Planned Obsolescence,
I have happily used the razors produced by one of your five thousand subsidiary companies for years and years and have generally been satisfied with the results (barring the occasional lapse of attention and resulting bloodbath in the tub, but I don't hold that against you). Being at least somewhat concerned about the effects my actions have on the planet, I was glad to use a razor with replaceable blades and keep some plastic out of the trash stream. While admittedly not as earth-friendly as going au naturel, keep in mind I work with adolescents, and hairy appendages are not an option when you want them to concentrate on the causes of WWI rather than your grooming habits. So imagine my consternation when I trolled through the vast selection of replacement blades on offer at MegaPharmaMart, only to find that my brand of blades are not available there. I can only imagine that they were sacrificed to make room for the Christian bestsellers, five-for-$10 tank tops, and extra vacuum cleaner bags considered essential for any well-stocked megapharmamart these days. Now I am on the horns of a dilemma: Either I can buy another kind of razor, thus rendering my current razor useless and wasteful; or I can drive somewhere else, thus burning gas and contributing CO2 to the environment to find blades elsewhere; or I can suffer silently (and fuzzily). Given that I teach high school students, that last option? Ain't gonna happen.
Signed,
Frustrated and Furry
Dear Customer and Cashier at MegaPharmaMart,
After I have spent the better part of an hour trying to procure such arcane and esoteric items as toothbrushes, soap, and bug spray, the last thing I want to do is line up for the one cashier on duty, only to get behind the one person left in the Western hemisphere who is not in a hurry between 4 and 7 p.m. on a weeknight. Actually, that is the second to last thing I want to do - the LAST thing I want to do is listen to that customer, confused by the complications of making a "transaction" using a "debit card" requiring a "PIN", get involved in a long discussion with the equally befuddled cashier about how it was better in the old days when people used cash, which further digressed into a paean to the good old days when money was referred to as "specie" and attached to the "gold standard," which was almost as good as 16th century Holland when you could use tulip bulbs for money. Do me a favor, people. If you have that much damn time, please do your shopping at two in the afternoon or some other hour that falls outside the normal work day. Oh, and welcome to the 19th century.
Some Pig
I realize you are in a fight to the death with the Targets and Wal-Marts of the world, but does every drug store now gracing the planet have to try to compete with the discount giants on the sheer amount, number, and volume of non-personal-care-related items they cram under one roof? I realize that wishing the local drug store would just carry items reasonably considered to be personal-care-related is akin to longing for the days of the village apothecary and doctors making home visits by horse-drawn carriage, but really, do you honestly think anyone goes to the local Rite-Aid to buy a rice cooker? However, I will agree to let you stock all kinds of cheap, unattractive, shoddily-made goods, schmaltzy greeting cards, designer knockoff sunglasses and like if you agree to try to impose some kind of coherent internal logic to your layout, along with clear and intelligible labeling. I realize it might be just me, but it took me five circuits of the store today to find bug dope because I didn't think to look for it in the same aisle as oil filters for the car and liquid laundry detergent - all of which were helpfully located under a sign that said "Household". Um, what?!?! What house do YOU live in? May I introduce you to my friend, the Dewey Decimal System, or perhaps the alphabet??
Crabbily,
Some Pig
PS You may exempt your surprisingly large selection of wine from my general condemnation of superfluous goods offered at drug stores, although I guess that would count as "personal care related".
PPS Could you up the quality of those wines at least a notch? If I find myself in extremis for a glass of a piquant but noble red some night, I hate to think I'm limited to the best the Messrs. Paul Masson and Ernest & Julio Gallo have to offer.
Dear Toothbrush Companies,
Do you know how long it took me today to find two (2) toothbrushes (teethbrush?) for two adults (me and my better half) that were exactly the same? All I wanted were two ultrasoft bristle brushes. I did not need any other bells and whistles. I did not want an "oral health care system." I did not need cheek scrapers, gum pickers, mouth massagers, or anything else you dreamed up to charge the tooth-cleaning consumer another ninety-five cents. I just wanted two goddamn brushes that didn't whir, buzz, vibrate, or otherwise demand batteries, an electrical outlet, or a guinea pig running on a wheel to power them. Can we all get on the same page here?
Some Pig
Dear Fortune 500 Company With a Vested Interest in Planned Obsolescence,
I have happily used the razors produced by one of your five thousand subsidiary companies for years and years and have generally been satisfied with the results (barring the occasional lapse of attention and resulting bloodbath in the tub, but I don't hold that against you). Being at least somewhat concerned about the effects my actions have on the planet, I was glad to use a razor with replaceable blades and keep some plastic out of the trash stream. While admittedly not as earth-friendly as going au naturel, keep in mind I work with adolescents, and hairy appendages are not an option when you want them to concentrate on the causes of WWI rather than your grooming habits. So imagine my consternation when I trolled through the vast selection of replacement blades on offer at MegaPharmaMart, only to find that my brand of blades are not available there. I can only imagine that they were sacrificed to make room for the Christian bestsellers, five-for-$10 tank tops, and extra vacuum cleaner bags considered essential for any well-stocked megapharmamart these days. Now I am on the horns of a dilemma: Either I can buy another kind of razor, thus rendering my current razor useless and wasteful; or I can drive somewhere else, thus burning gas and contributing CO2 to the environment to find blades elsewhere; or I can suffer silently (and fuzzily). Given that I teach high school students, that last option? Ain't gonna happen.
Signed,
Frustrated and Furry
Dear Customer and Cashier at MegaPharmaMart,
After I have spent the better part of an hour trying to procure such arcane and esoteric items as toothbrushes, soap, and bug spray, the last thing I want to do is line up for the one cashier on duty, only to get behind the one person left in the Western hemisphere who is not in a hurry between 4 and 7 p.m. on a weeknight. Actually, that is the second to last thing I want to do - the LAST thing I want to do is listen to that customer, confused by the complications of making a "transaction" using a "debit card" requiring a "PIN", get involved in a long discussion with the equally befuddled cashier about how it was better in the old days when people used cash, which further digressed into a paean to the good old days when money was referred to as "specie" and attached to the "gold standard," which was almost as good as 16th century Holland when you could use tulip bulbs for money. Do me a favor, people. If you have that much damn time, please do your shopping at two in the afternoon or some other hour that falls outside the normal work day. Oh, and welcome to the 19th century.
Some Pig
LOL! hahahahahaha!
I don't even know what to say about this post. Its like you followed ME around at my local Rite Aid and READ MY MIND.
NO seriously. GET OUTTA THERE!
I mean, there's freakin LAWN FURNITURE at Rite Aid!! They need to stop...
Posted by: Elaine | May 28, 2008 at 11:49 AM
Is it a sad commentary of my life that I have actually PURCHASED lawn furniture at Rite Aid? I'm not kidding. We did leave it at our old house when we moved, but we used it for 3 summers. I have also purchased pregnancy tests, wine and photo albums. Not necessarily in that order. Oh, and that slow person in front of you at the cash register between 4 and 7? At my Rite Aid, too! I think they plant one at every Rite Aid, so you'll buy more...
Posted by: Toasty | May 28, 2008 at 03:14 PM
I just bought frozen vegetarian corn dogs at Target. I find this slightly disturbing since I also bought socks.
Posted by: Toasty | May 28, 2008 at 09:55 PM