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muckefuckI'm not sure how I got it into my head that the Dominick's we planned to hit yesterday was immune from the closing frenzy at the other stores. Images of empty shelves and packed trolleys kept popping up on my FB feed Friday night but I thought they were all from the Foster & Sheridan store. I knew something was up when we got to the door and there were no trolleys or baskets anywhere in sight. I mean anywhere, as even a quick reconnaissance of the parking lot proved. So the Old Man started shopping while I lurked by the doors reading to pounce on departing shoppers. Fortunately, I got lucky before anyone got alarmed enough to alert security.
Produce and alcohol were not on sale, so we were doing fine until we began to look for dry ingredients. Then all we found was despoilation. Well, that's an exaggeration. It was curious to note what had sold out at 50% off and what hadn't. We needed cornmeal, sugar, and dried beans and there were none of any to be had--but there were box mixes (for cakes, muffins, masa--you name it) galore. Canned goods was one of the fullest remaining aisles. If you actually wanted a selection of varieties and brands, one of the few places you could find a nearly full array was in pickles. I was especially surprised to see ample supplies of canned seafood. Maybe you can't use clams or oysters, but who doesn't have a couple cans of tuna in the larder? (I wasn't interested myself until I saw lump crabmeat. No Old Bay left, however.)
Other discoveries: Apparently our cat isn't the only one indifferent to salmon. I found lots of Vitakitty snacks, but only in that flavour, which he'll only eat as if driven to it by necessity. As I was passing through the pet food aisle for the second or third time, an elderly lady asked for my help reaching some cans from a high shelf. "How many of those do you want?" I asked. "All of them." I scooped up several dozen and plunked them into her cart. By this point, we'd given up on making it more than two-thirds of the way through the list and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu had secured position in a checkout line which snaked all the way back to the frozen foods section. While I kept making forays in search of items of interest, he amused himself by taking in the human drama.
At one point, I heard a manager make an announcement in order to try to put a stop to some of the queue-jumping, but in general people were calm and orderly. There was a certain amount of cheer at an unexpected Christmas bonanza. Even so, as I was standing there with the snow still coming down outside, I thought to myself, This is what the end of the world will look like. Not having lived in any disaster-prone areas, it was the closest to a hoarding situation I've been in. I was a bit curious for the employees' take on things but I limited myself to eavesdropping on their explanations to other customers. The official closing date for most stores is December 28th, but at this rate they'll be down to a skeleton crew by tomorrow. Several of the stores have found buyers, but I assume the new owners will be hiring from scratch and competition will be tough.
Produce and alcohol were not on sale, so we were doing fine until we began to look for dry ingredients. Then all we found was despoilation. Well, that's an exaggeration. It was curious to note what had sold out at 50% off and what hadn't. We needed cornmeal, sugar, and dried beans and there were none of any to be had--but there were box mixes (for cakes, muffins, masa--you name it) galore. Canned goods was one of the fullest remaining aisles. If you actually wanted a selection of varieties and brands, one of the few places you could find a nearly full array was in pickles. I was especially surprised to see ample supplies of canned seafood. Maybe you can't use clams or oysters, but who doesn't have a couple cans of tuna in the larder? (I wasn't interested myself until I saw lump crabmeat. No Old Bay left, however.)
Other discoveries: Apparently our cat isn't the only one indifferent to salmon. I found lots of Vitakitty snacks, but only in that flavour, which he'll only eat as if driven to it by necessity. As I was passing through the pet food aisle for the second or third time, an elderly lady asked for my help reaching some cans from a high shelf. "How many of those do you want?" I asked. "All of them." I scooped up several dozen and plunked them into her cart. By this point, we'd given up on making it more than two-thirds of the way through the list and
monshu had secured position in a checkout line which snaked all the way back to the frozen foods section. While I kept making forays in search of items of interest, he amused himself by taking in the human drama.At one point, I heard a manager make an announcement in order to try to put a stop to some of the queue-jumping, but in general people were calm and orderly. There was a certain amount of cheer at an unexpected Christmas bonanza. Even so, as I was standing there with the snow still coming down outside, I thought to myself, This is what the end of the world will look like. Not having lived in any disaster-prone areas, it was the closest to a hoarding situation I've been in. I was a bit curious for the employees' take on things but I limited myself to eavesdropping on their explanations to other customers. The official closing date for most stores is December 28th, but at this rate they'll be down to a skeleton crew by tomorrow. Several of the stores have found buyers, but I assume the new owners will be hiring from scratch and competition will be tough.
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