Online Grocery Shopping – further removal, or necessary convenience?
I did something new and different…out of my comfort zone and, frankly, out of my character the other day…
I bought groceries…online.
And I gotta say, I liked it
I have Amazon Prime in order to get free shipping on the shit that I buy online.
I also have a predictable diet. I don’t do a lot of browsing…I go to the store, and endure it for the sake of procuring my week’s essentials.
Most grocery stores seem to have followed the same basic design formula of a casino – bright lights and labyrinthine layouts that make you feel like time stands still while you wander…
That and the fact that most people are morons – no, literally with a worldwide average IQ around 80, most people you come into contact with really are morons – and I’d just as soon avoid it.
That said there is a really kind staff at my local Safeway. So kind, in fact, that I have called corporate to give them all a glowing review.
(181 W. Mineral Ave. Littleton CO 80120 if you’re ever in the area.)
That said, I can get Whole Foods organic delivered to my door (with a picture to confirm it) for far cheaper and much more conveniently than I can go to the Safeway a few blocks away.
Sit with that ultimate expression of the Western world – I can eat like a king on an unemployed yoga-teacher budget…nay, better than most kings in their day for cheaper and far easier.
They didn’t even have salt & pepper sitting on their counters for god-sake’s!
I can sit on my ass and wait for wild-caught salmon or grass fed bison to be delivered right to my door. Sounds king-like to me, but my ego digresses…
Some might reasonably argue that this is just another instance of life being digitized, but to them I would say this – there are a few reasons to go to the grocery store:
- With your sweety on date night to cook something special (go on a Friday evening – the place is empty)
- If you need something sooner than 2 hour delivery (free w/ Prime)
- You want to say hi to your favorite clerk or store manager (did I mention the fantastic Safeway by me?)
But, as far removed as we already are from growing and hunting our own food, this new incarnation is but an incremental on-gridding…certainly when compared to the proportion our other on-grid steps represent.
In other words, the day we decided to not grow or hunt our own food was the biggest step away from the analogue…say 40/100 removal from the natural world of our own food procurement.
Then we farmed out (get it, ‘farmed’) the transport of the food, oversight of its quality, and final transfer via sale to us…if we take all that into account we were already somewhere between 80-90/100 removed from the origination of our food.
Getting it delivered is, by comparison, a minor addition to this hands-off quotient – maybe about another 1-3/100.
We’re still not responsible for it, it’s just more convenient. If you have a predictable diet, even moreso…’repeat order’? Yes please.
I, for example, juice celery and carrots…I eat a burrito a day…and 4 hamburgers a week.
I can hit repeat order, and even add a piece of cake or take one away.
(Incidentally it also saves me the three minutes that I usually spend carefully scrutinizing all of the tres leches cakes in an attempt to discern the incrementally different amounts of leche in each container.)
I’m not going to lose the capacity to go to the store myself – I’ve already lost that capacity.
Seriously, I remember returning home from an extended trip living in Nepal – after witnessing the world as it is, the shiny, brightly-lit and highly processed and packaged parcels on the supermarket shelves nearly gave me a panic attack…
Our food is already factory farmed, and organically manufactured.
If we’re not gonna sack-up and grow it or hunt it ourselves then we may as well have it delivered.
And, honestly, I wouldn’t even mind if a drone dropped it off – at least then I wouldn’t be pressured into tipping it.
(Does anyone know what an Amazon shopper/delivery driver makes? I’m not convinced it’s a tipping economy job, but I’m not sure?)
Give it a shot – I’m gonna recommend it to my mom if that gives you any indication of my opinion.
This shit gets stranger and stranger every day doesn’t it?
Good luck, Yogis!
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Justin “Jud” Kaliszewski is the best-selling yoga teacher and renowned creator of Outlaw Yoga. Author. Artist. Adventurer. Take his class NOW at outlawyogaclub.com and www.youtube.com/outlawyoga. Find his writing and art at www.justinkaliszewski.com and his presence all over the internet – for an outlaw, he’s shockingly easy to get ahold of.