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I went to Safeway today, which used to be a place where you bought bananas and tequila and Tillamook Vanilla and regretted it later. Now it’s something else. They’ve installed metal railings, serious ones. The kind that suggest cattle, or airports, or mild despair. You don’t walk into the store anymore. You are guided. Gently herded. There is a path, and it is not yours. And if you’re in a wheelchair and there’s a fire, you’re well and fucked. It is narrow. It is deliberate. It says: We have thought about you, and we do not trust you. You may die, and we are fine with that. This is not temporary. This is architecture with feelings about humanity. The baskets are gone. Stolen, I suppose. Or liberated. Ice cream is under lock and key, as if it might escape and start a better life elsewhere. Everyday things sit behind barriers like they’ve committed minor crimes. Before you’ve even touched a cart, the building has already made up its mind about you. You proceed anyway. You always do. At the end, after the little maze, after the quiet accusation, you arrive at the checkout. A machine greets you. It does not smile, but it asks for charity. “Would you like to donate to the Ballard Food Bank?” Of course it does. Because the same grand arrangement that has turned groceries into a fortified experience has also made hunger a group project. Prices go up. Wages do not. Profits remain robust and well-fed. And then, right at the end, the machine asks you to help fix it. You, who just navigated the chute. It’s a marvelous little contradiction. We cannot be trusted with ice cream, but we are entrusted with solving hunger. We are both suspect and savior. It’s efficient that way. Nothing about it feels like a store anymore. It feels like a system demonstrating itself. Loss prevention here, liability there, revenue everywhere…stacked carefully, like cans on a shelf no one can quite reach. The human part has been edited out for clarity. And yes, it’s fucking stupid. submitted by /u/earthwulf |
