Do you find supermarkets traumatic?
I thought it was because I was bipolar, but someone else mentioned how they despised going to the supermarket. I find the lights too bright, the music loud, the shelves and shelves of variations of the same products irritating. Then there are the queues, with annoying people in front of me. The loud beeping noises of the tills. It is not humane? Surely? If I could have my way I would go back to the days of streets lined with pleasant shops. With pretty front façades each selling their different wares. The butcher the baker the candle stick maker. That type of thing. Or I would launch a chain of supermarkets with soft lighting, smooth classical music, fountains everywhere, with occasional chairs. A play room for kids, and a rest room for the elderly. Does anyone agree with me on this? Or am I on my own trip? How would you change supermarkets? Do you think they ever will?
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No, I love supermarkets. Spending time in Safeway is one of my favorite things to do. I don’t like it when it’s too crowded because it just gets inconvenient. But I love being there, seeing people I know (I see at least one person I know almost every time I go) and I love seeing all the products and trying different things each time I go. Some people hate grocery shopping, but I love it.
But I’m weird. I love big busy places: airports, malls, supermarkets, Disneyland, I love it all. That doesn’t mean I don’t like small places; I love those too. Virginia City, Nevada, is full of small little shops and I love going there and just browsing around in the quiet.
No, but it is always way too cold.
My supermarket plays music that ranges anywhere from ELO, Supertramp, and Squeeze to 80’s pop, to Love & Rockets, The Clash, to well, just about anything. So I enjoy that. Also, I practically live there so I’m always helping people find stuff, or talking to the staff. I find it a pleasant alternative to going home.
If I were more friendly with them I’d try and live there, like the Bundys.
It’s a love hate relationship for me…I get hot and sweaty and dizzy in them but I love reading the food labels and looking in the book isles
I love the music my grocery store plays :-) I am with you on the annoying people though. I don’t know if they are just more irritating at the grocery store or what but I find myself wanting to throw canned goods or hurl a package of frozen meat at people more often when Im grocery shopping then at any other store.
Wait…maybe that’s because none of the other stores have canned goods or frozen meat. Hmmmmm…..
Many of them suck. You should make it a personal project to find some alternative places to get your groceries, such as a CSA, farmer’s market, food co-op, Trader Joe’s, Vitamin Cottage or something similar.
I hate grocery shopping almost as much as I hate cooking.
I throw tantrums in the aisles until they kick me out.whew.
@Ltryptophan Wow that was deep and thoughtful answer lol ;-D
If you want little shops all along the street, move to Philadelphia and go to the Italian Market Area.
But I imagine that ethnic areas of any sort in most major cities would be quite similar.
Also Whole Foods generally has a calmer more peaceful ambience.
I’m not overly bothered at supermarkets tho. For me they serve a utilitarian purpose.
It can be pretty terrible sometimes… if you think it’s bad now, try doing it with a baby!
I find supermarkets somewhat traumatic. But it the the standing in line and smalltalk that bother me. I am not a social person. I get nervous and always forget people’s names. So for me there is always that panic attack building up towards the cash register exit that I hate.
@Just_Justine….excellent ideas for a new kind of supermarket. The bright blinding lights
drive me nuts. A relaxed atmosphere with subdued lighting would be great.
My local regular grocery store is OK. The lighting’s too bright and they sell too many toys. But the intercom plays 70s R&B, like, the deep album cuts of the stuff never played on Top 40 radio. The food’s overpriced, though. My local Trader Joe’s plays 80s Top 40 pop interspersed with announcements of the specials. “Karma, Karma, Karma, Karma, Karma Chameleon… ‘This week, in our bakery, we’ve got crumpets! 6 for $1.99!’ Lovin’ would be easy if your colours were like my dreams…”
I don’t like grocery shopping. If I could afford it, I’d get all my food from Fresh Direct and have it delivered.
I’m with ya! I hate shopping. Especially for groceries.
@JessicaisinLove exactly! I want a softer feel all round. Not sure how one does that? Maybe softer floors, darker colours or subdued colours. Lamps and soft hanging lights. With New Age playing. A few sofa’s for bored family members to sit on and read. Or even have foot massages loll.
I think the grocery store should be a back of the house phenomenon. The front should be a small area where you pick everything up that is already paid for.
better yet, it should be delivered.
@aprilsimnel try our biggest supermarket, which is probably small by USA standards, but anyway, they ring bells in your face shouting prawns on sale, buy now, ring ring. Gad, then if you forget the tea you walk 30 klms to get back to the tea isle which has 400 teas. I always put on my nice face because when I am about to go bonkers I go all calm.
I hate supermarkets, but mostly I seem to have a seething sense of animosity towards people converging in idle talk in the aisles and blocking the way with their shopping cart, having to wait in line forever or how the people working there stock goods in the most wrong places, making you detour columns of toilet paper or Ritz crackers and nobody has any room to move.
I also get pretty sick of some of the cashiers who don’t seem to know how to work a damn register and talk to one another like they were on some kinda field trip.
I’m a busy gal stop wasting my fucking time.
Of course, my near Viking like behaviour at the supermarket is also one that helps make it the crap that it is, and I don’t hide this. I’ve come to know the times when there are less people, and that’s when I usually go.
No,I find our local ones right around the corner.
This is a copy & paste from the Piggly Wiggly Wiki Website that I find interesting:
“Piggly Wiggly was founded in 1916, in Memphis, Tennessee, by the American entrepreneur Clarence Saunders. It was the first true self-service grocery store, a concept patented by Saunders in 1917.[3] Because customers could choose their products directly, packaging and brand recognition became very important. Other grocers soon adopted the self-service format.”
@mrentropy Before that it was all behind the counter???
Supermarkets give me nightmares. But then, I served customers in one for more than a decade, I’m allowed a little PTSD for that.
Only if my husband is right there with me, throwing things we don’t need, nor do we eat, into the cart. We go to a smaller specialty grocer now, due to major dietary changes for health reasons, so I’ve eliminated some of the crap that we really don’t eat, anymore.
The pitfall of this store, while it may not have some of the same crap – it has some high end crap that we really don’t need! I just start pointing at the price of those things and reality strikes and I don’t have to hear him rationalize the purchase.
I don’t mind going, now it’s like I’m on a mission when I’m there. Just don’t ever ask me to go to a Super Wal-Mart, EVER again!
@cak; I will never ask you anything you don’t want me too. Send the list a list.
It is wonderful to hear you in your breezy mode. xox Gail and Milo
@mrentropy I was at the vending machine in barcelona pictured at your link before…funny.
Thanks, Gail – it’s wonderful to be back. I just pm’d you.
I love them supermarkets! Bypassing the depressing thought of being like everyone else and conforming with society, I am usually too focused on what I want than to think about that kind of stuff.
Not as much as I find dental offices traumatic.
I shop at a small independent grocery. They don’t have as much variety, but their store brands are great, and the produce and meat section are fantastic. The assistant manager knows me by name. They also offer online grocery shopping and will have it waiting for you for a $5 fee. For an additional $7, they deliver. A small family run place will let you phone in an order, will deliver and put away your groceries and will let you charge to an account. They also make fabulous soups, sandwiches, cookies, and hot entrees. I once forgot to make lunches for the kids for a field trip, and was slammed with meetings—they made and delivered lunches to school for them. I never waste food from that store.
The only time I find supermarkets offensive are when I have a migraine.
“With pretty front façades each selling their different wares. The butcher the baker the candle stick maker. That type of thing.”
As bad as supermarkets are, they are nothing compared to bazaars. They are usually even more chaotic, loud, and obtrusive. Pleasant really isn’t a natural human trait, especially when the biggest thing affecting sales of a merchant/product/service is how much attention it can generate.
@PandoraBoxx – where’s your shop of paradise located? I think I might just move there. There aren’t many places left in the world like that.
I’d shop locally if local didn’t mean tacking $2 on everything’s supermarket equivalent.
I am with you all the way. I cannot stand supermarkets and do find them traumatic…always have. On the rare occasion, I will find a smaller market and I love that. But I especially hate the fact that I have to hike all the way to the back of the football field sized arena just to get milk.
This question is interesting. When I was first diagnosed bipolar, any shopping trip was traumatic. I had to have an exact list of what I needed, and it was necessary for me to go exactly by the way the list was written. It didn’t matter if item two and item ten were on the same aisle. I had to go right down the list wandering all around the store.
Thankfully, I have good meds now, and no longer find the supermarket as a horrible place.
Now, the parking lots… those still scare the dickens out of me.
I have a love/hate relationships with supermarkets. I love food and seeing all the variety, etc. The experience is very traumatic for me if the store is crowded. Suddenly everything is negative and everyone is in my way. I just want to run away screaming.
got to say, i feel just like you do.
lately i’m hearing background announcing, like in a hospital
asking produce dept please call the information desk, ding ding
pharmacy dept please call line one ding etc
it’s all a bit much some times for sure.
@Just_Justine: I am uni-polar and loathe the big box super markets. I buy everything edible at our two Food Coops and use the markets for paper products and cleaning stuff.
I can’t wait to get outside and breathe the fresh air of rural America.
Sometime, for me it depends on which ones. Some of them are great, it’s friendly, has great foods/products, and isn’t blasting with music. However, in regard to loud music, (even though this isn’t a supermarket) I despise walking in to Abercrombie,and Hollister. Their clothes are filled with perfume, and the music is blasting that you practically have to yell to hear your kids. So, I’m usually better of stopping by supermarkets.
Shop at a nice little family owned store—I do sometimes. I never go to those huge stores.
The huge super sized supermarkets cause overstimulation and offer too many choices than a customer needs.
I suggest shopping in smaller grocery stores if they exist where you live.
If you can, shop when the stores are less busy.
Stores open 24 per day are pretty quiet after midnight!
Some stores allow you to place your order online and have them delivered for a modest fee.
Safeways (any establishment with an abundance of harsh fluorescent lights, really) tend to freak me out. Everything is just way too glaring. For this reason I tend to prefer the farmer’s markets and hippie organic establishments more. ;)
What is fun is strolling up and down the aisles focusing on the packaging. I make a habit to critique them—my snack choices are completely decided by how well-designed the wrappers are.
You made me nostalgic. The store you describe is what they used to be like when I was a child. There was a child care area, where we could sit and play puzzles and read.
Now, I have to take someone with me to shop, because the best prices are either on the top shelf, which is too high for me, or on the bottom shelf, and my back and knees hurt if I lean over too much.
I have discovered if I shop while most other people are at work, it isn’t quite as bad.
Nah I love going to Trader Joe’s. I buy 90% of my food there, all of it reasonably priced, and the workers are always friendly and genuine.
I wouldn’t say “traumatic”, but big grocery stores are definitely not something I enjoy going to. Too many people, too much noise, too many fake choices (like twelve different brands of the exact same toothpaste).
No, I love them. They are traumatic to my pocket, though!
@Janka “too many fake choices” Like all the styrofoam “baked” goods in the bakery dept as well.
@plethora – and all the products (from the hamburger meat to the Fritos to the soda pop) that are just re-formed versions of commodity corn. Some choice!
Yes….you’re right, corn syrup. Sugar is way too healthy…:)
I prefer small markets…but, I must say, the bright lights bother my eyes. Since florescent lights are constantly flickering, it bothers many people.They can cause seizures in some people, like those with epilepsy.
I like to feel good about what I cook and serve to others and myself…from the shopping experience to the table.
So…as a rule I don’t shop at supermarkets…but, I ‘could’ find them traumatic if I had to shop at one on a regular basis.
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