Okay. This evening tore it: I ain’t a-goin’ back to our Sprouts, no way no how!
How many times do you have to be hustled over your plastic grocery bag to get sick of it?
How many times do you have to be panhandled in the parking lot to get sick of it?
How many times do you have to tell the cashier NO, you’re not paying for a plastic bag, before they’re allowed to be free?
Gaaaahhh!
Out the door, headed for the parking lot….there to be intercepted by a female panhandler. She ain’t takin’ “no” for an answer. I have to charge and push my way around her to get to my car. Manage to dodge into it, start the engine, and drive away from her, irked.
Yeah.
The plastic grocery bag: NO, I am not paying for a plastic bag. Therefore, NO, my groceries don’t get bagged. Therefore, packing the groceries out of the shopping cart into the back of my car delays my escape from the hustling panhandler.
True: we do not live in the greatest of neighborhoods. And true: the Sprouts parking lot is crawling with nuisances. (Not so much, the Albertson’s lot across the road: not since they hired an armed security guard to stand out there and watch the comings and goings.)
Should I know better than to shop at that Sprouts?
Yes.
But… It’s a drive to the next closest Sprouts; it’s coming onto dusk; I don’t wanna drive across the city in the dark to buy a few minor items. Yes, I could buy the stuff at AJ’s, just down the road or the Albertson’s across the street: for about three times what Sprouts charges.
Yet… {sigh} I’m afraid that after this I’ll be burning gas to shop at the Walmart on Dunlap, at the Sprouts on 20th Street, at the AJ’s on Camelback. Enough, after all, is enough.