Dear Giant/Weis Markets (a grocery store for those not local):

I have been a loyal customer of Giant for about 10 years now. You have carried most of my favorite brands and have lots of workers that I have become friends with over the years. True, I have to buy some groceries at the two other stores in town (Wegmans or Price Chopper) because you haven't carried everything I like to have on hand. But I have done the majority of my shopping at the Giant every Monday morning for one reason only - the Giant has never had a shopping club card. If an item was on sale, it was actually On Sale and there was nothing extra necessary to make it so. No coupons, no cards, no gimmicks. I loved and respected that about the Giant, and preferred to give this company my money because of this fact.

This week, this changed, and my local Giant became a Giant-Weis store, and there was one of my friends who is a line manager there offering to sign me up for a shopper club card. I was Not Happy, but I did sign up. Because if I don't sign up, nothing that normally would be on sale would be on sale for me, and I like saving money as much as the next person. Then I went into the store, and of course, there had to be some rearranging done, or else we would not know it's a new store. The signage of course also had to be different. But these are minor annoyances. But then I started noting little things that the Giant normally carries, that you don't. Like the bacon bits I like, the Gyro kits, and Adirondack Lemon-Lime Seltzer. Or any lemon-lime seltzer for that matter. I should mention that I was very proud I got off of drinking regular soda and diet soda by drinking lemon-lime seltzer all the time. There's less chemicals and calories and it's inexpensive. This is what I normally drink, about a liter and a half a day. Every Day. And now you don't have it. The sodas that I will drink have also gone up in price, when I loved the fact they were 99 cents for a 2 L bottle at the Giant for a very long time. This was not the only increase in price on items I regularly buy. Sure, prices for groceries have gone up overall for the past six months since the rise in gas prices, but the prices did not go up that far at Price Chopper or Wegmans. But I chose not to shop at Price Chopper or Wegmans, because they have shopper club cards.

So now you have the shopper club card, your prices have gone up, and you don't carry my favorite drink. I'm beginning to wonder why the heck I ought to go to your store ever again.

Fuck you, Weis. Fuck you.  ¶ 1:19 PM