Guardians of the Grocery Store
There is always a downside.
The Columbus rental market is so tight right now you basically get to look at a few pictures and stagger around aimlessly for 30 minutes in the unit before you have to decide if you’re going to live there for at least a year or waiver in the slightest so the landlord can start fielding the next asshole in line.
The timeline moves so fast you can’t consider all of the aspects of your new place.
Take living across the street from a Kroger. Overall, it rocks. However, I knew there would be negatives—primarily the noise from the cars in the parking lot.
There is, however, a another reason that I had not, in all my seasons, taken into account:
Those god-damn theft-prevention sensors in the middle of the pandemic at a Kroger with an armed security officer at the door during all open hours. And make no mistake, they need those guns to protect themselves in gun-soaked America, as sad as that is as a concept.
I asked the security guard on my last trip through the Gates of Judgment, “How often do these alarms go off in your typical shift?”
“About 50,” the guard replied. The Rooster regrets not asking how long the guard worked per shift.
Fifty might be an understatement. The alarm has a sound that would make sense if I were about to be obliterated with an alien laser gun, and the decibel level let’s everybody within a 500-yard radius that a potential shoplifting investigation is underway at Kroger.
It’s gotten so bad, I keep hearing the alarm in places and hours when I know it’s not possible for me to be in range to hear it. But most of the time, it’s like an air raid siren in the middle of the day, and after about the 20th alert of the morning, you start to think to yourself, “My God, The Unabomber might have had a couple of points in those Montana cabin manifestos.”
The first demand the guards make of the suspect is to see their receipt. The next words will be to ask them if they have any baby formula or Similac or any other baby care items in their cart.
This is what the baby care aisle looked like at mid-afternoon Wednesday:
Of course a national baby formula shortage in any communist country would be ruthlessly mocked by western press.
But the national shortage isn’t a bigger deal because our national leaders don’t know it’s happening.
The party that is supposed to show at least an ounce of empathy isn’t aware of this looming crisis that our national leaders are once again unequipped to handle.
From Sarah Ferris of politico.com:
“Too often, Congress recognizes issues too late,” Porter, a top GOP target this fall in a swing district, said in an interview. “I had a colleague mention to me, ‘We’re not seeing it in the polls’ ... Well, you don’t know what to ask.”
For Porter, the episode revealed how much work Democrats still need to do to assure voters they understand everyday anxieties, particularly inflation’s strain on family budgets. She’s not alone: Some Democrats have warned for months their party is falling short when it comes to communicating to an increasingly exasperated public.
Well, at least Katie Porter one of roughly 30 effective legislators in what’s supposed to be We the People’s Chamber.
As the right-wing uses their Roe vs. Wade victory to continue their assault on tearing at the cloth of federalism and returning “rights to the States.” (The Rooster is under no illusion about where that language sprouted from in history.)
That means those with the means to move to other states are going to start voting with their feet.
Those without such means, well, they’ll be left at the mercy of the cruel bastards that run Ohio politics. I have a feeling the frequency of the alien death beam sound is going to grow more frequent as summer in Ohio starts to burn.
From Titus Wu of dispatch.com:
Both food banks and low-income Ohioans are struggling to obtain fresh and healthy foods as food prices soar, due to labor shortages and supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19. The pandemic also worsened food insecurity in Ohio, with 334,000 more people served by pantries this March than two years ago.
Some fear it could get worse.
When the federal government potentially ends its COVID-19 emergency declaration in July, significant boosts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or food stamps, will also disappear for at least 700,000 Ohio households.
Yes, some do fear it could get worse, namely the 700,000 Ohioans about to lose SNAP benefits.
The Rooster feels that in the crimes of life, pilfering your local grocery corporation to feed your family falls pretty low on the totem pole.
Will some of the theft be professionals or random assholes looking to make a quick buck on the black market? No doubt we will see videos of the worst incidents broadcast nationwide as if professional theft isn’t dwarfed by a much more serious problem in this country: wage theft.
The Rooster understands that private corporations, at least in this moment in history, have the right to profiteer on basic human necessities and protect what’s considered their private property.
But if these trends continue—and there’s no reason right now to think they won’t—that Kroger across the street is going to need more than one security to guard the baby formula.
ICYMI:
Two grifters with direct ties to the Bishop Sycamore scandal, two assholes, and a mysterious landlord have a real estate scheme cookin’ in the Hilltop.
Episode 5 of the Crowcast: Damon Schnur, Starbucks Supervisor at 88 E. Broad in Columbus stops by Spotify’s No. 1 Dark Horror/Fantasy Gothic podcast to discuss his store’s role in the national effort to unionize the iconic coffee brand.
THOSE WMDs. Only 19 of Ohio State’s 85 football players will be from Ohio this year… Fired by Starbucks, union organizer attends rallies as a furry… Mine e-waste, not the Earth, say scientists… Non-boring breakfast recipes… Airbnb is spending millions of dollars to make nightmares go away.