Anything but Empty
The hubbub in your grocery story
The grocery store sells white space now because the noodle cups are out on strike, and white space comes cheap — cheaper than plastic cups of low-sodium chicken noodle.
You can’t eat white space but it sure makes a statement. 100 percent pure! All natural! The white spacers aren’t scabs; don’t malign them. More like victims of circumstance.
Nature abhors a vacuum and empty shelves demand to be filled, even if the only takers are invisible. Neat trick, that, all those barren metal shelves glorying in their nakedness. Cheeky bastards.
Go ahead: Gape at the gaps in goods left behind by striking noodle cuppers who, by the way, were soon followed out the door by the cream cheese bricks.
And after cream cheese marched out, sports drinks and pretzels followed. The chips decided to stay behind. They have their reasons.
Don’t believe the rumors about consumers making panic runs and moving their cars from garage to driveway to make room for more toilet paper and boxes of baking mix.
That’s a cover story promulgated — quite successfully — by the proteins sick of undergoing ritual slaughter to feed the appetites of others.
Be kind to your neighborhood salmon and the bovine on the hoof.
Be kind, actually, to all, from the striking noodle cuppers to the masked officiant working the register who does not meet your gaze at the check-out line.
The struggle is real and everyone, everything, is collateral damage.
