Creepy Loyalty

Loyalty.  It’s such an interesting word.  The dictionary defines it as “faithful adherence to a sovereign, government, leader, cause, etc.  I’m loyal when it comes to the “cause, etc.” part.  I drink Pepsi ™.  I am not a fan of Coke ™.  Hands down.  If you offer me both, I’ll choose Pepsi.  Every day.  And all their products.  Sierra Mist ™ over Sprite ™.  I just like it better.  I prefer Target to Wal-Mart (for a kazillion reasons that I really won’t get into but suffice to say that one is the creepy people that shop there, and another is the way that they go and build 100 cash registers and only ever intend on opening two of them).  I prefer McDs over Burger King ™ if I’m going to ingest MSG-laden grease.  And I won’t go to a BP™ unless it’s the only gas station for 100 miles.  Call it what you will (psycho, sad, obsessed, impressive, astonishing), I call it loyal.  It’s who I am.  I find something I like and I stick with it.  All that to explain the following lament.

When Clark Kent and I first moved to Memphis we knew nothing about the place.  Even our small ‘burb.  Nothing.  And everything here is different.  All the stores we were so familiar with in the southeast are not here.  Everything is just different.  The only grocery stores here are Kroger (which we already weren’t fans of) and something called “Schnucks”.  So, when we moved here, we went to Schnucks.  Check it out, right?  See what it is, and whether we’d just be forced to shop at the other grocery store that I already didn’t like.  After all, if there’s no Bi-Lo (my favorite grocery store, which has stores all the way to Nashville.  Nashville.  300 miles to the right of us there are great grocery stores, BTW).  My first time in the Schnucks by our house, I was greeted, spoken to like an old friend, and invited to church. (There are two questions everyone asks you when they meet you in Memphis and find out you just moved here: What brought you to Memphis? and What church do you go to?)  Plus it was clean and had nice produce and meat.  These are important things to me.  And so I became loyal to Schnucks and those people.  I shop there for everything.  Peanut’s gym has a fundraiser through Kroger, but I don’t shop there.  I could.  It would help offset gymnastics.  But I don’t.  I don’t like Kroger.  It’s not further than Schnucks … it’s across the street, actually.  But the produce isn’t good, the meat is gross, and the people aren’t friendly.  In fact, they are the opposite of friendly. 

Now that you’ve been introduced with my weird love of grocery stores, you can understand a couple things.  One, I am obviously a bit off center.  No one should feel that way about a grocery store, right?  But if you haven’t figured out that I’m a few crayons short of a full 24 count by now, then you just wait … I haven’t told you my feelings about Dora yet, have I?  Two, you can understand why it devastated me a couple days ago when the news announced that Kroger had bought all the Memphis-area Schnucks.  Yup.  My favorite grocery store is going away. But it’s more than that.  It’s that all the people are likely going too.  They all have to reapply for jobs.  All the cashiers that know my kids, speak to them about school and dance and gymnastics, ask them how their day was … the nice guy who stocks the dairy area every weekday and knows I like the Gogurt instead of the Dannon for the kids.  The sweet ladies that are in the cook-demo place that understand that having four kids is a blessing, not a curse.  The one cashier who is “our” cashier in the morning when we go in and was excited with me when I found out we were going to have Bug.  The managers who will go back to the aisle you missed something on and get it for you at check out.  The nice bag boy who shares all the great fun things to do this weekend with you.  And the cute little high school guys who want to be smooth and “grown up” and try to impress me while they are checking out my groceries.  I will miss them all.  Even if they keep their job, which isn’t likely, I won’t see them.  I don’t like the other grocery store.  Not even if it has my favorite people working in it.  I might be crazy, but I will miss Schnucks.  So much that I took the time to whine about it here.  Maybe if I whine enough Bi-Lo will come save us from the not nice people and yuckiness.  Yeah, I’m whining about it.  It’s my take on loyalty.  And I can pout if I want to.  And enjoy my store.  For the rest of this week.  A few more days of the “way things are supposed to be” for me.  Then I guess I’ll move onto something else.