I don't know how it is in your town, but at one of the Stop and Shops in Hamden (I don't mean to get too deeply into semantics here, but if I've stopped, how can I possibly shop?), they've certainly seemed to put the kibosh on any of that "childhood wonder" crap. It's almost as if they had a meeting and then came out against it. Their "solution"? Make it as depressing a place as possible.
When you first get there, you can't help but notice the ground and parking lot is muddy and trash-strewn. The guy assigned to collect the carts (apparently they don't fire these people easily) talks and yells to himself and is clearly homeless. I guess if he is going to be outside all day anyway, it is a good thing that S&S has employed him.
As you try to walk in the front door, you are accosted and harrassed by every one from black beggars to the KKK. Not to mention girl scouts, and school sports teams and their diabolical pyramid money making scheme of selling candy bars. I'm sure the profit there is through the roof.
If you can make it inside past this rabble, you are greeted with giant placards and posters hanging from the ceiling of pale, bald children with leukemia and cancer. This macabre decor officially turns the place into a house of horror, and whoever thought this would make sense in a place where you shop for food is beyond me. When the dying children's faces, names, and simulated signatures are blown up 1000 times, it really drills in an unnecessarily poignant and funereal feeling that, in my opinion, has no place in Stop and Shop. It is insulting that the decision was made to force people to confront this kind of thing in a grocery store, knowing that human beings need food and they have no choice. That right there is a tacit admission that those huge placards do not belong there.
On the wall next to all the shambling, pathetic schlubs waiting in an eternal line at the bank, are many more little pieces of paper taped to the wall with people's names on them, indicating they gave money to help yet more sick and dying people. Not only does this perfect the uncalled-for somber nature of the place, it tries to make you feel guilty for not joining in. Guilt is not an emotion going to the grocery store should bring on.
Enough already! They might as well have a giant sign that says "Everything you see around you will eventually be waste! We're all gonna die! AAAAAAHHHH!!!!!" hanging from the ceiling as well.
I'm sympathetic to the plight of suffering children. But I think it is inappropriate of Stop and Shop to shove this sad aspect of life in people's faces. My gripe is obviously with that company and no one else.
On a lighter note, since I try to include related pictures with my posts, here are pictures of two real, and hilariously named food products:
This is a great combination for breakfast, lunch, or dinner...
I mean, Toffifay just seems like a convoluted way to just say "toffee", and Faygo seems like a vague slur (why don't they just add a "silent" T to the end of the word and let that be the end of it?) I leave you with just one question... at this point in history, can TOFFIFAYGO be very far behind??????
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