Consumer Outrage: Citysuper et les autres

Bastards at CitySuper. How dare you charge $10-$12 for a bloody cup of yougurt that clearly states "Not For Individual Sale"? Sneeky Chinks!

See, CitySuper is like Meinhardt or Capers in Vancouver. The difference being only about 10% of the products are organic (5% questionably organic) and pretty much everything is imported and so the company thinks they have the liberty of inflating their prices. And because it's just oh-so exotic and foreign, you see the expats hesitatingly forking over the dough for crap they can get for a fraction of the price back home, and locals of nouveau-riche extraction going muy loco over stuff that they think is, as Margaret Cho puts it, hot shit but just cold diarrhea. Says a housewife, adorned with the latest Chanel bag and gawdy jewellery, "It's American, so it's good stuff," as she points to packet of Velveeta.

Britney Spears may agree with you. I, on the other hand, think you're full of shit, you Chanel-toting bitch.

Anyway, I usually go into CitySuper for a quick snack or something to drink, and I never look at the receipt. But when I bought a crap load of stuff yesterday I finally looked over the receipt I realised what diatribe was written on the bottom of it.

S.O.S.

Be Nice to Earth!

Say 'NO' to bag
Offer to the world charity
Save the earth from pollution

Oh the irony of it all. I never thought I was a west coast tree hugger until I visited the supermarkets here. I don't know how many kilometres worth of plastic wrap they use each day, but I'm sure the volume is shocking. They package EVERY DAMN thing. For instance, say bye bye to the freedom of picking individual fruits from a big bin. Why spend that extra minute in the market picking fresh produce when you can have market staff pack them in twos or fours in a styrofoam tray, tightly wrapped in a meter of plastic wrap? It's appalling.

Jumping back to the receipt thing...it turns out CitySuper is not only an overpriced market, it's also a charitable one at that. Why else would they make a $0.20 (about 2 cents Canadian) donation from my $200 sale to an organisation not specified on my receipt? If CitySuper is as worldly as they claim to be on their receipt, how about upping that donation a bit?

When shoppers enter that store, shocked by their prices, it's no suprise the chain has an exclamation point in its logo.

"W T F !"