A Super Shopping Day
Here’s one big reason why I look forward to Super Bowl Sunday every year (besides it being a harbinger of spring and the thankfully last game of the year for the the bizarrely Republican sport of football):
It’s the best goddamned grocery shopping day of the year.
At about 5:05pm I strolled into the new Kroger Theme Park on the east side after finding a parking space within eyesight of the store — a rarity indeed now that the place is as big as that titanic Boeing factory in Everett, Washington). I waltzed through the aisles unobstructed by the normal scads of humanity. Like, next to no one blocking my access to the Honey Nut Cheerios while they gab on the phone. And a precious few couples arguing over whether to buy the Prego or the Ragu spaghetti sauce in the jar. (Big Mike’s tip: Buy neither. Go for the Classico: it doesn’t contain any high fructose corn syrup or other sweeteners.) And best of all, no gaggles of frat boys in their pajama bottoms and scuffs discussing the merits of the various boxed macaroni and cheese brands.
The Remodeled Kroger Now Sells Jetliners Too
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No one (or, at least, next to no one) is out shopping when the world’s biggest TV ad rollout, bad pop star mini concert, celebrity photo-op, laser light show, fog machine, movable stage, fireworks fusillade, sacred ritual to honor the gods of hyper-consumerism, blatant wealth displays, and strip-show-clad cheerleaders is on big screens in every godforsaken home in many nations on this planet. Oh yeah, there’s a football game going on in their somewhere as well.
The only thing that worried me before I got to the store was whether or not the place would be stripped out by pre-party shoppers. It wasn’t. Except for the chips aisle (which looked as though a hurricane had blown through) the place was well-stocked. I’ve never seen such plenty in the produce dept.; natch, few Super Bowl party throwers worry that they might be low on pears and fennel stalks.
All in all, it was my pleasantest grocery trip since, well, last Super Bowl Sunday.
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Peanut Brains
How weird is this holy land wherein kids are barred from bringing peanut butter sandwiches to some schools while thousands — nay, tens of thousands — of parents refuse to vaccinate their little snowflakes because of a load of blather spouted by some B-List celebrity?
Yeah, some schools around the US ban the possession of peanut butter by their students just in case one of the (arguably) 4 percent of American kids who have the peanut allergy inhales some peanut dust from another kid’s PBJ and whose symptoms might be severe (further reducing the already minuscule percentage at risk to a near statistical insignificance).
Contraband!
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Lots o’folks in the US shudder at the imagined risk probabilities inherent in peanut butter yet blithely scoff at that real peril presented by not protecting their kids from contagious, often killer diseases.
Oh, and guns in schools are fine and dandy, acc’d’g to some other peeps.
Babies, we Murricans are nuts.
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Atwood At Bloomington
Whaddya doing tomorrow night? If you’re not going to be at the Buskirk Chumley Theater, my friends, you’re going to be nowhere.
Literary lion Margaret Atwood will be at Bus-Chum beginning at 7pm. She’s the Ruth N. Halls Distinguished Speaker in the series presented by Indiana University’s College of Arts & Humanities Institute. Atwood, best known, perhaps, for her dystopian novel of the future, The Handmaid’s Tale, has written some 40 books, bouncing between the genres of children’s lit, adult fiction, poetry, essays, scifi, and more. Her first book, The Edible Woman, was released in 1969.
Margaret Atwood
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Atwood will read from her newest book, Maddaddam, the final entry in her Oryx and Crake scifi trilogy. She’ll also sign books (as soon as I finish this post, I’ll be putting in an order for her top titles; they’ll arrive at the Book Corner tomorrow afternoon).
This is your chance to see — and maybe even meet — one of the world’s greatest wielders of pen and keyboard. And get this: admission’s free. The place is pretty well sold out already (or should I say freed out?) but the BCT box office people say folks waiting outside the theater ten minutes before show time will be given any empty seats that remain.
Be there.
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Goose Brains
So, the big new rage is the otherwise non-descript down parka with the Canada Goose Jacket logo that everybody who can afford the $1200 pricetag is wearing these days. That prob. means you won’t be seeing any of them here in B-ton.
Oh, wait…, see that black Maserati whooshing by? Didya see the driver? The one who’s obviously the scion of some quasi-royal Saudi petro-plutocrat family studying at the Kelley School of Business before returning to his benighted, tyrannical, theocratic homeland where he can exercise the lessons he learned therein to further rape the Earth and impoverish the vast majority of the planet’s inhabitants?
He’s wearing a Canada Goose Jacket.
Twelve Hundred Bucks
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So are people all over the streets of New York City and even the sunny avenues of Los Angeles. People, I might remind you, with tons o’spare cash. Apparently, pop prince Drake wore one on national TV not long ago and next thing you know, the anencephalic among us are following his lead. Need I say blindly?
To be fair, these particular anencephalics are not technically among us, if by us we mean those who weekly juggle our fortunes in an effort to pay utility bills, rent, and auto expenses while trying to load our grocery carts with something other than ramen packages and soon-to-be date-expired cuts of meat.
Anyway, Gawker last week chimed in on the Canada Goose rage. Writer Sam Biddle opened his Friday piece thusly:
Canada Goose Jackets are for pricks.
Sigh. If only I could express myself so economically.
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