Are we at the rubicon yet?

originally written 2007

I had a perfectly good day running, cross-training, yoga & meditation yesterday – then I went to a large grocery store. Perhaps it was doing the yoga just prior to – but these thoughts crept through while attempting to navigate the normal grocery chores....

Recently changes in budgeting tactics, coupons and lists were in hand. Of course, the usual – BOGO deals, ‘spend X amount and get this for free’ deals. Some were advantageous; some were just plain over the top (don’t have enough pantry space anyway!) As I went against the principles of a time-constrained convenience store society (ie: took my time!) to look up and down the aisles slowly – I painfully reminded myself of all of those little marketing tricks (‘BRAND on SALE! BUY NOW’, ‘BRAND X BETTER THAN BRAND Y BETTER THAN GENERIC’) --- but having been an industry professional, I had already learned that sometimes – these could be designed misnomers merely for the sake of that extra buck from the consumer. However, it certainly has created a lovely multi-choice mega-billion (trillion??) industry for marketing, grocery store shelf space fees, advertising, legal teams, commercial construction (hey, the stores are bigger than ever!), packaging, and of course shipping and transport. Looking at the large picture – my mind got littered with a bunch of Carlin-esque questions (no insults to anyone intended!):

1. Is food really food (beneficial to us) by the time we open the package?

2. Who really is responsible for the energy crises – and why are average consumers the ones forced to pay higher pump prices?

3. With the number of ‘mega-stores’ on every block – were they built to actually increase revenue or to do ‘tricky-dick’ accounting (think Enron) – and pump up actual ‘demand’ numbers for production over the last 20 years (hey—I don’t remember too many mega-stores before the great WalMart/ Kmart expansion wars. Then everyone else did the same thing.)

4. Supposedly, point #3 was to increase efficiency. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to find efficiency when I am stuck in traffic for hours just to get to one particular store a few miles away stuck in between the other mega-store complexes between the new traffic lights and patterns that were built after eminent domain was used to command previous land-owner homes to be turned over because the mega-stores claimed the local population demanded the road…….

5. BTW – did point #3 save transportation energy fees? I didn’t quite realize that tractor trailers used less gas when stuck in traffic.

6. Oh yeah—if the actual demand was so high, why do we have sites like “Over-stock.com”?

7. I look down the aisles and wonder how many garbage dump trucks will it take to remove the non-recyclable packaging trash afterwards --- and I can’t even begin to imagine the size of the dump site, or the amount of untraceable toxins released into the atmosphere at incinerator sites. How much does it cost me to recycle all that stuff anyway?

8. Getting back to food – How many children really know what the ‘original’ ingredients of that package food item looked like? For that matter – how many adults?

9. The new ‘organic/green’ packaged goods kick. Okay- they are trying. But again—inside the industry, there seems to be a joke about how to ‘twist’ the definition of organic, and sell the idea to consumers that authentic organic is impossible (which is true for mass quantity sales.) Also, within the industry – retailers like WalMart have created new ‘acceptable’ limits for declaring what really is organic by utilizing loop holes. Oh yeah—to make sustainable shelf-stable organic goods, most of the time, the packaging has to be altered to force those conditions. Oops – there goes the ‘green’ message again. (there are a few small studies working to remedy this, but it might be a few years away)

10. Hey—I am VERY GLAD that creative types have jobs due to this over-excessive Bacchus celebrating Roman life-style. Just think of all those silly jingles, pop songs picked up for major ads, elevator and background music in the stores, photography for ads, models and actors who are paid endorsees, books and essays about this stuff --- and comedians like Carlin! It’s made their jobs MUCH easier – there is SO MUCH material!

11. Recently voted one of the world’s worst products ever due to marketing--- Dasani water by Coca-Cola. The judges said that marketing over-priced water from ordinary tap sources with ordinary purification methods to multiple global locations was simply bad, advantageous and embarrassing business. Yeah, I think I could go with that.

12. I think I could become obese just by taste-testing every sample promotion product pushed down my throat if I went grocery shopping every day. But then again… I wouldn’t have to buy groceries at all…

13. So how long before we actually hire individual packaging experts for ourselves? We have plastic surgeons, cosmetic and apparel consultants, hair-dressers, image consultants—why not just create a new industry for ‘packaging people’—(it worked for water and silly putty). Then again – maybe that’s the secret to Posh and Paris’s material success!!!

14. How much gas did I actually end up using for the 3 mile slow, stop and start traffic?


15. This mega-consumerism thing reminds me of the old ads for Texas – “bigger is better” --- a reflection of the last few years of government?

16. If we did clear out all of these pseudo-warehouses (hey, those mega-stores have replaced the previous local warehouses, after all, and we only have selective ‘distribution centers’ now) – even with the ‘minimal’ nutrition value some of these items have – would there be enough to feed every hungry person on the planet?

17. What is going to happen to the EXPIRED items (in store or in homes)?

18. Ok- I’ve had enough rant thoughts. I am grateful and appreciative for all the creative choices available, just a bit overwhelmed. Now, did I actually buy what I came in for?