I have to be willing to subject myself to a Safeway’s Fisher-Price police state to buy ice cream? by Vivian McCall The ice cream was my breaking point. When I want it, I’m usually having a bad day. The locks made it worse.  Unb reakable. Comically large. Glittering. Silvery. Affixed to the top right-hand corner of the glass door. I could see the primo shit I was willing to shell out $10 for: the vanilla Häagen-Dazs. I had two options. Smash the glass with my forehead, or smash the big button to call over an underpaid, overworked employee at this understaffed Safeway. I chose “button. ” As I waited, I meditated on ice cream and grocery stores. What they’ve come to. Breaking point is the wrong phrase. Breaking points are supposed to be an endpoint. But what choice do I have, Safeway? QFC? Trader Joe’s is fine—and the canned dolmas make for a banger lunch in a pinch—but I can’t subsist on snacks and quirky TV dinners. I need meat. Veggies. Ingredients. I don’t have the space or wherewithal for a victory garden to overcome this tyranny. I am on a desert island with these companies, and they’ve drawn a dividing line in the sand. Their side has all the coconut trees. Their trees, their jungle rules. Each one of the following has been a non-breaking breaking point for me: hiring guards to check my receipt as I leave, physically chasing my girlfriend out of the store when she didn’t show them hers, the ban on backpacks, private security following crying homeless people around, private security hiring that skinny white nationalist with extremist tattoos flashing the taser on hip like it was his big, wet, post-coital cock, and, also, the goofy miniature grocery store they’ve set up in the middle of the grocery store that cordons off the booze and toiletries from the rest of the store. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Everyone I know hates it. It’s a Black Mirror episode in there. I can’t stand seeing people line up, flash their receipt to a guard armed with a taser while being filmed on who knows how many cameras, who then go about their merry way like this is always how grocery stores have been, how grocery stores should be, and how grocery stores will remain in perpetuity. It’s a borderline abuse of shopkeeper’s privilege and—if there’s a lawsuit in this—I hope someone sues the Häagen-Dazs out of them. We’re told to tolerate this because the market demands it. These private companies claim—often without evidence—that we’re in the middle of an organized retail crime spree the likes of which this country has never seen before. News reports would indicate that they are probably lying about that, but in this market-driven society, they’re allowed to lie without consequence. They’re not accountable for anything, and they’re not responsible for making food more affordable, when the expense drives crimes of poverty. You people watched Les Mis, right? We can all generally agree that Inspector Javert is a dick. Why are we doing this? Theoretically, the consumer can strike back. Our weapon is our dollars, but let’s survey the battlefield. Fuck. They own it. We can’t boycott food, or practically swap a short walk with heavy groceries for a long walk with heavy groceries, and Amazon delivery just cedes power to bald evil. They’re bending me, and you, and your mother, and your grandmother over the barrel of economic inelasticity and spanking us barehanded. The supermarket is supposed to be the capitalist Garden of Eden. The one thing that makes all the bullshit worth it. More food than one could ever hope to eat. More brands than anyone would even want to try, with more brands on the way, all promising something new and better and tastier. I grew up partly in Florida, which is 90 miles from Cuba. My dad told me—horrifyingly, forebodingly—that Cuba didn’t have grocery stores like ours. There were no brands, no choice. I picked the cans of whole peeled tomatoes for our weekly spaghetti dinner. Forget familiar Hunts. The sexy Contadina lady. Hearty Red Gold. The alluring Cento. In Cuba, tomatoes were just “tomatoes.” I shivered. I shared his horror. In America, the government did not control my tomatoes. I still buy whole peeled canned tomatoes, and I’m willing to shell out $6 for the primo shit. And I have to be willing to subject myself to a Safeway’s Fisher-Price police state to get them. Some choice. ...read more read less