These letters re: Whole Foods made me smile, too. :) Ever try the vegan flavored gelatin? Or the beef flavored soy patty? :) My kind of skeptics. :)
mcsweeneys.net
OPEN LETTER TO WHOLE FOODS SUPERMARKETS.
August 13, 2004
Dearest Whole Foods supermarkets,
In retrospect, I feel like I knew how this would end before I even met you. I mean, seriously, your very name distinctly implies that other foods are somehow incomplete and inferior by comparison. I should have realized then how spoiled you were. Even before you started taking me on as your sugar daddy, you were already more spoiled than week-old pesticide-free arugula.
Of course, you wouldn't have gotten that bad if you tried adding just a few preservatives ... butylated hydroxytoluene comes to mind ... but not you. No, your apple-smoked turkey-artichoke sausages rot at both ends. You beat on, your Gorgonzola-stuffed endive boat against the current.
Which is why this just can't last. I mean, look at me. I clip coupons. I buy dress shirts at Ross. Ever buy a plastic bottle of vodka? I have. And I don't go pouring it into marinara sauce, or muddling it with fresh pomegranate and basil. I sip it. I sip it and I think about my student loans, my failing fantasy-league teams, my numerous and glaring faults.
And I guess that's why you'll never be alone; you do make whole, albeit fleetingly, the tortured life of the disaffected urban ex-rebel. Your herbal-supplements section, like your excuses, seem to offer a solution for everything. You offer me organic vegan unflavored gelatin, and I think, "Maybe that's what's been missing ..."
But mark my words—it will all come crashing down upon you, Whole Foods. Your oils, unguents, and tuna cans all say "cruelty-free," but you and I know just what sadistic depths you're capable of plumbing. The FDA may not have evaluated your statements, but I've had all the time in the world to do just that, and there's more hypocrisy in your promises than in a beef-flavored soy patty.
Even writing this, I feel, is a sign of the weakness I have for you—a passive-aggressive attempt to revive that spark I once felt when pensively regarding the heft and bearing of a $7 jar of peanut butter. You have stolen my youthful zest and replaced it with free-range-yak's-milk Wensleydale, which, as any yak will tell you, only goes so far.
But I'm moving on. There's a new man in my life, Whole Foods. You might know him; his name is Joe, and he's big in the trade industry. He and I will line my cupboard with a love stronger than your chelated nondairy nonanimal protein lozenges, deeper than the roast of your fair-trade mountain-grown shade-grown Ethiopian Yergacheffe, and bulkier than all of the bulgur wheat and buckwheat groats in your bulk-foods aisle.
It's been real, Whole Foods. But it's been anything but whole.
:)And this one, too--:)
complaints.com
Whole Foods, Austin, TX - I was asked just the other day by a bagger, "How do you feel about that?" in answer to my preference for a paper bag. I just want to buy some milk for breakfast, so why can't you just leave me alone?
Whole Foods / checkers and baggers
Whole Foods is a hippie grocery store chain, begun in Austin, TX.
My complaint is about the Whole Foods store in Austin. I hate shopping there. I'm sure the people the registers are told to be friendly and talk to the customers. It must be store policy because I can't get out of there without feeling like my privacy has been violated.
I was asked just the other day by a bagger, "How do you feel about that?" in answer to my preference for a paper bag. I just want to buy some milk for breakfast, so why can't you just leave me alone?
But, I can tell you honestly about the rest of the employees, and their job is to ensure the customer feels priveledged to be allowed inside the store. The customer is the lucky one, you can tell, because of all the surly attitude flying around.
Could it be all the pain endured getting those piercings and tattoos? Or not being able to wash their hair on a daily basis for fear of mussing the dreadlocks? Maybe it's because of having to carry the tips of their noses so far up in the air it causes neck pain.
Honestly, all that crap went out long ago. The only people who feel "cool and hip" shopping in Whole Foods are visitors from out of town (or outter space).
Us locals could care less that the checker wants to hear about our feelings or intuitions on types of
grocery bags.
IT IS SOOOO FAKE!!!
J. K
:) |
