What were they thinking?

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Have you ever noticed something and immediately wondered “What were they thinking?” It could be an offshoot of a highway that seems to take forever and never gets you anywhere or a chair design that is ugly and uncomfortable or maybe an abstraction in movement that cannot be understood by the normal mind.

Well, as the story goes, the local grocery store has been refurbished and there are some questionable areas.

Now even I understand the traffic flow and display placement is studied and worked out for maximum efficiency. Certain isles are smaller to cause logjams and product location is spread to increase the possibility that someone will place it in their carts.

So as they get close to finishing I note the changes. The deli section has expanded and moved to the front. They have even changed the costumes of the crew that overcooks the fried chicken and looks dumbfounded restacking the tubs of coleslaw and potato salad to try an give them an appearance of chefs instead of line cooks, but like the food itself, a better package does not mean better taste. There is a open salad bar and some kinda meal bar but I worry about open food. Plus the price is $7.00 a pound so I bypass.

Then there is a seating section hidden behind a tall wall with Wi-Fi and a giant flat screen television. I must assume it was set up for people coming to the grocery store to dine in. Isn’t a grocery store a place to buy foodstuffs to take home and cook in your own kitchen? Obliviously I didn’t get that memo. Well at least the manager will be able to find the employees, especially when the game is on.

And perhaps when redesigning the floor plan they didn’t examine the consumers. From what I have experienced, and I go there everyday, the average customer to this particular location is around a million years old. They scoot around on those bumper cars, carrying their oxygen, stopping to stare at cleaning materials, diapers, and prunes. They touch all the produce, block the aisles, and constantly talk to one-another. Some just wander around the store as if it was a walking trail while others graze.

Oh, you’ve seen them. They come in and stop at all these freaky sample stations set out around the store. They are like a pinball bouncing between the stale crackers and mushy cheeses and dried meat and canned stews before gravitating to the wine tasting. A person could live off all of the sample items and maybe some of them do.

Plus with this mentality and an open food and salad bar, plus a place to sit and watch soap operas, they may never leave.

Imagine a cool open space with free television, bathrooms, and all the food you can graze on. You could sit there for hours with the price of one cup of coffee and not be bothered by those yuppies hanging around in coffee shops. What a draw for the elderly. If they had bingo and ballroom dancing, shoot I’d move in.

So I guess I will continue to attend the party everyday as long as the beer is cold and the pizza frozen and stand in line with my peeps hearing about their lumbago and watch them fumble around in huge bags for a checkbook to slow down the 12-item or less line with their 38 varieties of exotic fruits with questionable prices that must be constantly checked.

But I know what to expect, so what was I thinking?