Boredom at the Grocery Store

March 5, 2025

Recently I went on a little trip. Well, “trip” isn’t really the right word: it was over a thousand miles, halfway across a continent. What an incredible world we live in where that can possibly be a “little” trip, something you do over the weekend.

While I was out I went to get some groceries. One needs to eat no matter where one is, after all. I looked up grocery stores on my phone’s map app and found one nearby. It was one I’d never heard of before.

But when I got there it turned out to just be a relabelled version of a store from my hometown. The majority of grocery stores in the U.S. are owned by a small group of megacorporations that you can count on your fingers. I was even able to use the same loyalty card I do back home to get the same sales on the same products.

It was a depressing moment of my trip. I wondered why I had come all that way just to find the same stores and brands as the place I left. I wondered if that’s the endgame, everything the same everywhere. I took some degree of familiarity for granted; I was still in the same country. But this was a little too homogeneous for my taste. If my map had shown the exact same store that I have at home I don’t think I would be so disappointed. It’s the bait and switch that gets me. I don’t think I’m unreasonable for expecting new things in a new place.

This didn’t ruin my trip by any means. I had a nice time. It was just a sour moment. It was a crack in the dull satisfaction and ease which the Market is designed to give us.