The Faces Of Hunger (Take Six): I Just Went Out Grocery Shopping (And Boy, Is My Wallet Aching)

 

<I shot this photo in 2013, and all the others

on this page -- and all I got

was this lousy grocery bill

that eats my bank account!
Photos: The Reckoner/The Squawker>

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Real life lately feels like one endless royal scam, and there sure as hell aren't any lack of them. One sign hit me watching TV late at night, as I always do, while I'm putting in that intellectual sweatshop labor to, well, mimic some semblance of paying the bills, right?

Anyway, some company or other is hard pitching four or five products, such as a pair of shades that sharply reduces the glare, while you're driving in bad weather conditions. Sounds like a winner, right? Every home should have one, and all that. 

But each commercial ends with the same tagline: "Due to supply chain shortages and logistics issues, this will be your last chance to get Sharpie Shades at Price X. And remember, we have a strict limit of one per household." But you know what'll really happen, right? They'll roll out a brand new ad ("Back from Supply Chain Siberia!"), only you'll end up forking over 20-30% more than you did last time.

Why? Because that's what all these bastards are doing. Nearly two years after the sticker shock first rattled our wallets, the rampant greedflation that's causing so many of us to feel like there's a giant screw sticking through our spines shows little sign of letting up.

Sure, a few commodities have finally fallen back down to Earth, notably eggs -- which soared from $2.69 per carton here at Matthew's, to a whopping $5.99, even $6.99 -- and green onions, which peaked around $1.99 per two-item bundle, to a mere $1.49.

Yeah, I know, you don't have to tell me. With price dops this piddling, start building the yacht, right? And if you believe that, I've got some prime Florida swampland that you can help me drain.

And we all know something funny's going on, when the traditional workarounds you relied on to beat those high prices don't work anymore. Take cooking oil, one of many examples I could quote. At Matthew's, a 12-ounce bottle of the standard artery-clogging Wesson costs almost as much ($3.99) as the "good stuff," the olive oil that we like to use ($5.99). 

What's more, a lot of the mid-sized bottles, containers, and packages have either disappeared, or gotten scaled back. You're stuck buying the smaller version of a product -- which you'll be replacing, before long -- or the mammoth version that will lay waste to your budget. 

You either buy the 30-ounce mayo jar for $5.99, or its pint-sized counterpart for $4.19. Heads you lose, tails you lose. With prices like these, you can't fully stock a fridge anymore. It's reached the point where The Squawker and I are eating out more -- twice a week, sometimes three -- because it costs less than all those greedflated ingredients you'd have to buy, to make those dishes at home. How screwed up is that? 

<Take II, As Above: No other comments necessary.>

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Not surprisingly, trips to the grocery store feel like going to the dentist. Or the tax preparer. Or the doctor, who hands you those cloudy-looking X-rays, and then drops the estimate of how long you have to live. It's a traumatic trip out, however you care to slice it.

Every list that you cobble together makes your gut knot with tension. Every weekly ad you browse feels like some kind of crazy Cold War exercise, of matching wits with an unblinking, unsmiling, trench-coated adversary. Every item that you can't afford, or end up putting back, is another reminder of, "This is not the place for you." 

Except last week, that is, when Squawker and I trekked out to Murrow's Frugal Acres, where the prices are slightly lower, and the portions come slightly bigger. I even dropped an extra 30 bucks into the bank account, so we'd have slightly more room to maneuver.

But guess what? As smart and smooth as that moved seemed, it felt like tossing pebbles at a tank. We were hoping to hold the line at $80, but sure enough, the cash register ticked mercilessly northwards -- $100, $110, $120, $130. "Here we go again," I muttered, under my breath. "Time for that same old sideways ballet." 

I started handing the bags to The Squawker, as we began trying to figure what we could live without. Ka-ching! Out goes the bag of chicken patties. Ka-ching! Out goes that $6.50 block of cheese. Ka-ching! Forget about most of the vegetables, too.

Or so it seems, until a graying, towering, heavyset man in the next aisle -- who's watching us closely -- hands the cashier a $20 bill, saying, "Here. I'll cover it for them, if it's not too much trouble."

The cashier jerks a thumb towards the goodies piled up near her register -- the chicken patties, block of cheese, and all. "Do you still want this stuff, or are we putting it back?"

Before any of us can answer, the stranger peels off another $20 bill. "I'll cover the difference, too, if it comes down to that." 

The cashier takes the bill, and now, we begin scooping all the rejected food items back into the bags. His good deed done, the stranger shuffles off, just as The Squawker and I get through our thank yous. He's probably tired, I figure, or he has some other stop to make. Who knows?

On one hand, it feels great that somebody you've never met is willing to stand up, and do something like that. Not everybody is stuck in the same selfish grind of mindless materialism, which is easy enough to assume, on good days, and bad.

On the other hand, this episode serves up yet another reminder of how out of whack our society has spun. Because there are only so many good-natured strangers, and so many twenties to peel off into needy fingers, which is why it doesn't happen so often.

This is the myth that the Great Depression soundly busted, that if enough folks looked after their neighbor, all that pesky economic deprivation would simply take the appropriate hint, and disappear. But guess what? The big, bad world can always dish out far more suffering than any charitable act, or enterprise, can ever hope to absorb, especially when the same bad actors remain in charge of it. 

Of course, this isn't the first time we've found ourselves here -- as Bruce Springsteen suggested in his 1980 classic, "Held Up Without A Gun." The song touches on high gas prices, the major worry of the time ("Looked at my tank it was reading low"), music biz shenanigans ("Man with a cigar says, 'Sign here, son'"), and the jaw-dropping indifference of a society that unleashes them:

Now it's a sin and it oughta be a crime

You know it happens, buddy, all the time

Trying to make a living, trying to have a little fun

Look out

Held up without a gun

Held up without a gun

Held up without a gun

Held up without a gun

Clocking in at a mere 66 seconds (!), it's not hard to see why Boss diehards consider this song -- which he tucked away on the B-side of his smash hit, "Hungry Heart" -- Bruce's attempt at channeling the Ramones, or something like it. Either way, it works for me, and what's more, he still plays it live, now and again.

Like so many underground classics, those lyrics feel as relevant today, as they did at the time -- maybe even more. Which is probably why they say, "History doesn't repeat itself, it also rhymes."

On that cheery note, I'll see you at the dollar bin. And oh, yeah, one more thing. Happy hunting. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before The Dollar Bin Becomes The Fiver Bin):

Bruce Springsteen: Held Up Without A Gun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxBhIeTARBE

Robert Reich: The Hidden Link Between Corporate Greed And Inflation:
https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/videos/the-hidden-link-between-corporate-greed-and-inflation/757841191863574/

The Guardian: This Isn't Wage-Price Inflation, It's Greedflation:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/19/wage-price-inflation-greedflation-pay-cost-of-living

<"Timely Reminder"/The Reckoner>